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Apologies if this is a long post, but my 13th Age players are literally The Best Thing ever, and I need to detail all of this. So, they're in the big capital city, when they start receiving worrying reports that the church in charge might be seeking out this underground community of people and killing them off. Everyone is doing their own thing in town, the kind of jokey player says that his minotaur character destroys a bathroom. So, I tell him that it's now canon that he actually causes a sewer issue with his intestinal distress, and everyone laughs. Later on, the rogue makes contact with the local thieves guild, and manages to ingratiate himself by recommending them a way to dispose of bodies. Why do they need to get rid of bodies? Well, the church has been hiring them to clean up after these killings, and their usual dumping place for the bodies is in the sewers. So the group searches the last place the bodies were cleaned up from, and finds the ghost of the doorman who was killed. I've just got him there to let them talk him into the secret base of these guys, but they start chatting with the dude, then they start giving him some advice, 30 minutes of discussion later and a few great diplomacy rolls, and they've acquired a friend who is invisible and can float through walls. I can feel the rogue's palpable glee. They get in touch with the underground dudes, hear the story out, find out (Gasp!) the church might be corrupt and just a tiny bit evil, and agree to help. With some assistance from the guys, they manage to successfully set up a sting operation, and kill off some of the guys sent to clean them out. They leave one guy alive, I have him give them a little information, and then... they start to talk to him again... Thirty minutes later, they've acquired some very good information, and the assistance of a young kid who got roped into something big and just needs a better environment. They shoo him through a portal into the city they're constructing/fortifying, and prepare to go meet with his employer. Cue some unlucky rolls in a bar, and they're sent on a wild goose chase through the sewers, which are still in terrible condition from the minotaur. They find their way into an underground arena, rough up the proprietor a bit, kill off all the animals, and then stumble into the merc's office. A bit of diplomacy later, and he has them battle some of his mercs as a test, to see if they've got the skills to really be worth the trouble. Successfully pinning the four dwarves in a cage/office match, he agrees to help them out, with a catch. He's not just going to gently caress over his own business, he built the mercs from the ground up and he knows if he just hands over information to them, he could be out of a job, or worse. So, a little diplomacy later, and they come to an agreement. He'll sell the mercenary company to them, legally, and then go start up another one elsewhere. They'll then own the rights to the office, the merc's contracts, and more importantly, all the information for the contracts. Basically, I figure here's a way to get them the stuff they need, get this guy out of the picture, dent the rogues loving immense fortune, and maybe give them a building in town if they wanna use it. The rogue then immediately stops me.  "So, I now legally own this company, right?" "Yeah, basically. All the contracts are now legally yours." "And, I'm in pretty good with the thief's guild that cleans up the messes, right?" "... yeah?" "So, I contact the guy in charge of doing that, and make him a counter-offer. He tells the church that he cleans up the bodies they pay me to kill, I warn the guys who are the targets to skip town, and I pocket the profits" "Oh... crap"Everyone else "Hey, sweet! We just set up an organized crime ring! For good!" Then the paladin says (paraphrased slightly for length) "Hey, didn't that door over there lead to the underground arena?" "Yeah, it did..." "I contact the owner of the arena, and offer to buy it from him..."Long story short, the bard and the paladin now own the underground arena, (with a few small catches) and are currently planning to import the various creatures they find in their travels to fight in it, and make even more money. They've set up a portal in the back of the mercenary's office which leads to their hidden town, so they can not only easily move between the two, but also funnel the underground railroad of refugees they're going to profit off of not killing to safety. They are going to drain the bad guys dry of funds, while saving the lives of those it targets, and pocket the profits in the process. For fun, they'll adventure around and capture dangerous monsters, then have them fight to the death while making even more money off of it. I have no idea how I am ever going to top this, I love these guys so much.
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Oct 22, 2012 03:21
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I think the standard 13th Age solution for "How will I ever top this?" is "Throw some Icons at it." I have to say, setting up an economy of benevolence has to be one of the best ways to solve an adventuring problem.
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Oct 22, 2012 03:28
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Captain Bravo posted:money The funny thing about small businesses is that they have a tendency to fail. Want a nice plot hook? One of the folks you had a contract out that "disappeared" ends up getting stumbled over by someone in the church, and the gig is pretty much up. Those arena fights sure are nice, until one of those animals you capture and send back kills its opponent and then jumps into the crowd and starts wrecking your patrons. Suddenly, they're paying for hush money and maintainance but not making nearly the same income. That little arena of theirs is now a money sink instead of a way to gain income.
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Oct 22, 2012 03:30
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Actually, part of the agreement is that if they ever stop turning a profit with the arena, they lose it. Basically, the guy who used to own it now gets 30% of everything they make, without having to do anything. I meant it to function as an easy out, so if they get tired of it it doesn't hang around and sour the game, but it's also a nice little "We can't lose", because at any point all they have to do is close it down, and they lose ownership of it. Also, like I said, they're sending all the "dead" people into their secret underground city, of which they have the only portal out. These guys cover their bases well, it's almost kind of frustrating sometimes trying to come up with a way to screw them over with their own actions.
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Oct 22, 2012 03:52
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I want your 13th Age group to meet my Star Wars group, Captain Bravo. Seriously, though - choosing economics (even shady economics) as a weapon against evil is awesome, but it can create as many problems as it solves... because other people have economic interests too. Anyone else in town run a gladatorial arena or streetfighting operation? The PCs are now cutting into their profits, so congratulations, now they have new enemies. Enemies who aren't gunning for the PCs because of ideology, they're doing it because of profit... which often makes for much uglier fights. The caverns that the PCs are using to construct an underground city probably didn't just appear; who used it before the PCs? If excavation unearths something nasty, like undead or something, what happens then? Or if excavation uncovers something valuable, like say a buried hoard of treasure... think none of the citizens are going to be tempted to sell out the PCs? The church has a new subcontractor; I wonder if they're ever going to ask, "hmm, what happened to our old subcontractor? And can we trust this new guy?" Oh, and getting food and supplies into the underground city might be possible through the portal - but doing it without anyone noticing is another thing entirely. And hey, the people who're disappearing - any of them have friends and family? 'Cause some of them are going to be looking for the disappeared... and some of the disappeared will inevitably break the plan wide open by sneaking out to go find therir mistress or something. Never fails. What I'm getting at here is this: the PCs are doing awesome things and you should let them be awesome. But always keep in mind that every new wrinkle the PCs come up with is another wrinkle you can use to challenge them - another thing they have to watch. Let them be awesome... but be on the lookout for the new opportunities their awesomeness gives you.
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Oct 22, 2012 04:29
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So a friend of mine bought into the Only War Beta a while ago (For those who are unaware, OW is Dark Heresy: Imperial Guard Edition and is allegedly coming out in Q1 2013) and just recently set up a campaign for a few of our friends in the campus 40k group to try it out. Now, allegedly the gist of the campaign is that our squad is getting dropped onto a Chaos held world in order to wreak havoc before the main invasion fleet arrives. This of course means we're going to have to bring all our equipment with us, but fortunately we get to start on an Imperial Star Fortress and as such get a huge bonus to our requisitions rolls. Sounds like it's a prime opportunity for everyone to grab a Meltagun and go heretic hunting, right? Ha ha ha ha ha ha  So I start off asking for a silenced Stub Pistol, which I easily get. What then followed was some of the worst collective rolling in any tabletop game I have ever played: -Techpriest tries to get our Ratling Sniper a rechargable Long Las Rifle. Rolls 100, gets reprimanded by the Mechanicus, is nearly kicked out and isn't allowed to make any more requisition rolls. -Ratling decides to roll for it himself. 97, gets caught and dragged back to our Commissar by his ears. No more rolls for him! -I decide to roll to get some additional ammunition for my Combat Shotgun. loving 100, character found himself staring down the barrel of a Naval Armsman's shotgun and would have gotten killed if our Commissar hadn't been walking by at that moment (The GM literally rolled to see if I would get killed before the campaign even started). Guess who got banned from the Armory? -Our Commissar decides to try and get an extra Bolt Pistol. He managed it, but only after narrowly failing the requisition roll and having roll Fellowship against a suspicious Munitorium official. Our rolling was so bad that the GM had to give us a Medpack just as we were kicked off the station, and all we had to show for it was a pair of pistols, a single detpack, and a little bit of ammo. By this point the campaign had lasted for maybe twenty, thirty minutes. Off to a great start! After that the rolling got a bit better, but not by much. The high (low) point had to be when early on in the first encounter (Dealing with mutants inside a transport ship), the techpriest managed to break his internally mounted Auspex (Another 100). Due to the fact that this meant a part of equipment directly mounted to his brain had just spontaneously turned off, he also got to roll insanity points! Oh, and the Commissar and I nearly decapitated each other while in close combat with the mutants due to our continuing stream of 80+ die rolls. We eventually managed to get the upper hand on the mutants, but only after I managed to use the only good roll of the night to separate a Hullbeast from its torso. The session ended after that (Commissar had to leave early) but fortunately we've managed to schedule another one for this Wednesday. Technically speaking, the actual campaign hasn't even started yet. We haven't even even landed yet and oh god we're all going to die 
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Oct 22, 2012 04:36
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Oh my god, if Only War is 40K: Paranoia Edition it might be the greatest Warhammer thing ever created. Is the character creation slimmed down any from the other 40K RPGs?
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Oct 22, 2012 04:40
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Anyone else in town run a gladatorial arena or streetfighting operation? The PCs are now cutting into their profits, so congratulations, now they have new enemies. Enemies who aren't gunning for the PCs because of ideology, they're doing it because of profit... which often makes for much uglier fights. It was actually a minor plot point that the previous owner managed to run everyone else out of town, and is the only mercenary business in the area. As well, the previous owner of the Arena mentioned that there are so many rules, regulations, and red tape involved with the government that it's a difficult, not very profitable enterprise. That's not to say they might not meet these problems, but they're not a very big threat at the moment. DivineCoffeeBinge posted:The church has a new subcontractor; I wonder if they're ever going to ask, "hmm, what happened to our old subcontractor? And can we trust this new guy?" The church doesn't actually know he's the new owner yet. The paladin is the one who notarized the contract, and they've been working through messengers and couriers. Pretty much the only people who know about the takeover are the Arena owner, (Who they're conspiring to "disappear") and the Thieves Guild. (Who aren't talking... yet) DivineCoffeeBinge posted:The caverns that the PCs are using to construct an underground city probably didn't just appear; who used it before the PCs? If excavation unearths something nasty, like undead or something, what happens then? Or if excavation uncovers something valuable, like say a buried hoard of treasure... think none of the citizens are going to be tempted to sell out the PCs? They're not actually building this city. They found and activated the portal, and then saved the lives of everyone who was currently living there, so the city owes them. The city is an enclosed, self-sufficient underground village with only one way in or out, which they are currently populating with people who owe them their lives and captured weapons of war. Plus, these refugees they're sending through live in a closed, hidden community that nobody knows about, and will be going through with the express consent of everyone involved. Not to say these aren't good ideas, but again, my players have thought this through. These guys are very good at keeping things from blowing up in their faces. DivineCoffeeBinge posted:What I'm getting at here is this: the PCs are doing awesome things and you should let them be awesome. But always keep in mind that every new wrinkle the PCs come up with is another wrinkle you can use to challenge them - another thing they have to watch. Let them be awesome... but be on the lookout for the new opportunities their awesomeness gives you. You say this like it isn't already my playbook? That is basically the footnote of this entire game, I just throw a few pieces out and let them put them together into solid gold, these dudes are amazing. Pretty much all my fun as a GM comes from finding ways to introduce new elements into things, have them create their own adventure, and occasionally trip up one of them with his own hubris. It's fun knowing that the only way to keep them from capturing and exploiting the enemies they fight is to make them so pissed off that they'll throw the bad guys into their own pit traps instead of taking them alive. I actually had the rogue, at one point, walk across the trap infested room instead of just throwing his daggers, because he wanted to see what kind of ridiculous bullshit these guys had set up. (I had a magic mirror in the corner blast him on top of the Ranger, who then threw him at the bad guy and scored a big hit.) Edit: I feel I should mention that the game isn't just "Amassing a fortune in a fantasy setting", this is all going on at the same time the dudes are uncovering just, amazing poo poo. There's a whole subtext of wizards being assholes, including the very real probability that numerous wizards are collecting and activating an entire race of powerful, ancient robots, which were built to go toe to toe with demons and have no qualms killing people. The church is currently the biggest force for good in the world, directly and indirectly employs the PCs, and may or may not be working with, controlling, or controlled by an ancient group of assassins and holy hitmen. The Empire, and the Archmage in particular, are flexing their power over the land for some unknown reason. The Lich King is a major plot point, and is probably involved with the aforementioned robot crap. The Prince of Shadows has a rival church, which one of the PC's belongs to, which is either A: Evil and causing problems everywhere. B: Benign, and possibly an ally which they may later need. C: Fracturing, and in the ensuing civil war a target for the PC to win over, recruit, and then use to secure power and money. Everywhere they go, the PCs keep running into strange poo poo, usually involved with robots that nobody seems to know anything about, but were a strong element of a previous age. One of the party members actually is one of these automatons, and better not even think about reading this next sentence, because he very probably will turn out to be the reason for all this weird stuff activating, and is looking like he'll come to realize/accept/decide he's a kind of robo-jesus, destined to save his people, give them souls, and induct them into the Church of the Rat God, of which is he currently a Bishop. This is, maybe, half of the poo poo these guys get into. I have been responsible for probably 33% of it, and every other bit of it comes from them. I'm not kidding around when I say I probably have the best group ever. These guys are amazing. Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Oct 22, 2012 |
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Oct 22, 2012 04:42
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:What I'm getting at here is this: the PCs are doing awesome things and you should let them be awesome. But always keep in mind that every new wrinkle the PCs come up with is another wrinkle you can use to challenge them - another thing they have to watch. Let them be awesome... but be on the lookout for the new opportunities their awesomeness gives you. This is "how to think like a GM" 101 right here. Excellent advice.
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Oct 22, 2012 04:48
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Parkreiner posted:Oh my god, if Only War is 40K: Paranoia Edition it might be the greatest Warhammer thing ever created. Is the character creation slimmed down any from the other 40K RPGs? Not really. I haven't played to much of the 40K RPGs (Couple sessions of Deathwatch and dabbled in Dark Heresy), but from what I can tell they're all essentially the same system with different focuses. Hell, if anything Only War is more complicated, since you have the option to create your own regiment that determines your character's starting skills and equipment.
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Oct 22, 2012 04:49
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Not really. I haven't played to much of the 40K RPGs (Couple sessions of Deathwatch and dabbled in Dark Heresy), but from what I can tell they're all essentially the same system with different focuses. Hell, if anything Only War is more complicated, since you have the option to create your own regiment that determines your character's starting skills and equipment. Aww. Thanks for the reality check then, I'll stick with 3:16.
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Oct 22, 2012 04:52
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I came here after the game to read the glowing review of what Captain Bravo said we did, and the only mention of me is buried under a wall of spoiler text. But seriously, Captain Bravo Actually let's us play, rather than forcing us down lines he created. It's really fun to have a DM who can just roll with what we do. I'm going to give DMing for our group a shot, and my brain is probably just going to pour out of my ears the first time someone throws me a curveball. Beast Pussy fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Oct 22, 2012 |
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Oct 22, 2012 06:20
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Not true! Captain Bravo posted:(I had a magic mirror in the corner blast him on top of the Ranger, who then threw him at the bad guy and scored a big hit.)
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Oct 22, 2012 06:29
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Parkreiner posted:Aww. Thanks for the reality check then, I'll stick with 3:16. Is the 40k RPG character creation that bad? I've run a bunch of them and the players tend to really get into CC. What's your idea of a good/better creation method?
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Oct 22, 2012 08:40
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Captain Bravo posted:Actually, part of the agreement is that if they ever stop turning a profit with the arena, they lose it. Basically, the guy who used to own it now gets 30% of everything they make, without having to do anything. I meant it to function as an easy out, so if they get tired of it it doesn't hang around and sour the game, but it's also a nice little "We can't lose", because at any point all they have to do is close it down, and they lose ownership of it. One of the people targeted is a guy who lost out in some church politics. They rescue him, send him through the portal, and he realizes that this is something he can use to get back into the church's good graces and grab that promotion to heirarch or whatever. Welp
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Oct 22, 2012 10:52
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Liesmith posted:One of the people targeted is a guy who lost out in some church politics. They rescue him, send him through the portal, and he realizes that this is something he can use to get back into the church's good graces and grab that promotion to heirarch or whatever. Welp "Hmm, suddenly events have transpired which have completely hosed over an entire underground city full of people... Sucks to be them on that side of the portal, perhaps we should take this as a lesson to not put so much effort into being mostly benevolent PCs?" Section Z fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Oct 22, 2012 |
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Oct 22, 2012 12:33
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Oh god, Captain Bravo's group was the one with the Rat Pope? No wonder your game is so amazing.
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Oct 22, 2012 15:13
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Asphyxious posted:Is the 40k RPG character creation that bad? I've run a bunch of them and the players tend to really get into CC. What's your idea of a good/better creation method? I certainly didn't think so! It's a little complicated, sure, but there's a lot you can do with it. Especially the regiment creation, since it allows you to customize all your starting skills and equipment while coming up with all sorts of awesome backstory. Catachan Paratroopers that specialize in Plasma weapons? Yes, please! 
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Oct 22, 2012 15:17
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Yeah, this story basically means "my players are familiar with Amber." A free spikard? poo poo, that's gotta be a trap, right? Heh. I would not call this a "masterpiece".
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Oct 22, 2012 15:25
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Asphyxious posted:Is the 40k RPG character creation that bad? I've run a bunch of them and the players tend to really get into CC. What's your idea of a good/better creation method? It's not so much that it's awful or anything (in fact, the random-roll tables in Dark Heresy at least never fail to provide amusing results), but I tend to roll pretty rules-light these days, and it's just a little more handling time than I feel comfortable with, especially if Only War is going to be a total meat grinder "too bad you pissed off the quartermaster, you deploy with three empty lasgun clips and a cricket bat" black humor farce. I haven't read Deathwatch but I understand Fantasy Flight is willing to tweak the WHFRPG2 mechanics a bit if they feel circumstances warrant (like the mass-combat mook slaughter rules in Deathwatch) so I was hoping they'd maybe make the Imperial Guards reverse mooks, so there'd be a little less handling time between old peon becoming a grease stain and the new bright-eyed recruit hopping into the thresher. But I guess not. TLDR, it's not them, it's me.
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Oct 22, 2012 23:46
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Zereth posted:They also tell you to screw over players who paid up during chargen with their precious points for things in exactly the way the actual chargen rules tell the players they won't be. I think one of the examples in maybe the supplement brags about how he once screwed over a PC who took a good chunk of "bad stuff" (point-debt, which makes you less "lucky"), and then screwed over the other PC who took a good chunk of Good Stuff (the opposite) even harder. There's a reason the even more storygamey version of Amber Diceless in the September Design Contest was "gently caress You Eric Whatever". And DH character generation isn't too bad. It's a little fiddly and overcomplex, but it's manageable. Actually playing the game, however...
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Oct 22, 2012 23:47
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MadRhetoric posted:There's a reason the even more storygamey version of Amber Diceless in the September Design Contest was "gently caress You Eric Whatever". Let's be fair, Erick Wujcik is hopefully being feted in Gaming Valhalla for all the awesome and amazing insanity he crammed into Ninjas & Superspies and Mystic China, which are basically the GURPS books of Palladium in terms of being awesome sourcebooks for any other game but the one they were written for. Given that I can forgive him for how egregiously Amber both fails to actually be a proper adaptation of the source material and contains ludicrously, almost unbelievably hostile GM advice that seems designed to make fistfights break out at your table. quote:And DH character generation isn't too bad. It's a little fiddly and overcomplex, but it's manageable. Actually playing the game, however... In all fairness, while I wouldn't play DH again, I have absolutely no regrets about running it because I got to use those amazing critical hit tables. One of my players somehow managed to tear all the skin off a man's torso using a blunt instrument, and another guy got set on fire by a lasgun and three rounds later the ongoing damage made him explode.
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Oct 22, 2012 23:57
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Error 404 posted:
Yes, indeed. I've found that I only need to plan the events at the very start of a session, and anything further just gets discarded as I watch the PCs and go "Well, that's much more awesome than I had planned!" Just as an example, I'm running a Legends of the Wulin game currently. A recent session had this as the entirety of my notes (And these weren't even written down, just what I came up with in my head in the days prior): "Party encounters column of troops, general in carriage with Moonlight Mirror." Moonlight Mirror is one of the big bads, although we're still in the introduction phase for all of them. At any rate, I had basic stats for the troops, some thoughts on what the general can do, and a few ideas for how to hold a battle on top of a speeding carriage in this system. I was worried because I'd been meaning to stat out Moonlight Mirror all week, but hadn't gotten around to it. Turns out I needn't have worried, because no combat happened. The PCs were polite and courteous, and wound up being offered a ride in the general's carriage. This worked out both well and badly for them, because while they got much useful information about the Jin Empire's plans and got to know Moonlight Mirror a bit, they were seen disembarking at their mutual destination, and when they started waving around their McGuffins in an area that is not entirely friendly towards the Jin, it prompted a late-night appearance by ninjas wishing to 'speak' with them. None of that would have happened had they beaten on the troops, but I'm sure I would have discovered something else cool to happen.
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Oct 23, 2012 03:34
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Friend of mine is running Silver Age Sentinels. Fairly rail-roady DM, but we're having fun with it. We're playing the bad guys, and while a bit sluggish, the dialogue coming out of it is amazing. "We probably do some villany together, as a team, so we can get used to one another. Teamwork and all that." "You mean like, rob a bank? We're supposed to laying low for a bit." "I was thinking something smaller." "A... credit union?" "We could try a 7-11." Hopefully our GM doesn't rail road us too hard and we get to knock over a convience store next game. As supervillans.
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Oct 23, 2012 07:47
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You could also go around putting kittens in trees.
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Oct 23, 2012 09:09
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Steal a play from The Joker and take a kid's straight-A report card. Now his parents will think he's failing everything and will punish him for it!
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Oct 23, 2012 09:20
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Divine Coffee Binge, I have a question about your Star Wars game. Your GM does know IG-88 is inside the core of the Death Star and has a program to take over every droid in the galaxy, right?
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Oct 23, 2012 10:22
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Zemyla posted:Divine Coffee Binge, I have a question about your Star Wars game.
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Oct 23, 2012 10:29
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Zemyla posted:Divine Coffee Binge, I have a question about your Star Wars game. I believe that his response to learning about this was "Yeah, that's fuckin' dumb." Something tells me we're not going to see it come up in-game. 
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Oct 23, 2012 10:31
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I believe that his response to learning about this was "Yeah, that's fuckin' dumb." Why's your GM gotta player hate on IG-88?  e: holy carp someone besides me is up at this hour!
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Oct 23, 2012 10:41
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Nietzschean posted:Why's your GM gotta player hate on IG-88? Well, to be fair, a program that would so radically alter the programming of literally every droid in the galaxy does contradict vast chunks of what we know about droids, both in his game and in the canon; it's akin to saying you've written a program that will let you control every computer on Earth, even though they use different operating systems and some of them aren't even networked to anything. It's not IG-88 he dislikes, it's that storyline. Having a GM who knows his way around computer science does away with most 'computers are magic!' plots in short order. Which, for a computer-focused character like mine, is occasionally a real pain...
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Oct 23, 2012 11:38
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I can imagine that to be true, but even if one were to discount the "computers are magic" perspective there is still the possibility of having a sentient Death Star II under the command of not the Imperial forces but of a genocidal assassin droid. Ah, well. Still keep us posted on how things go!
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Oct 23, 2012 11:40
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I believe that his response to learning about this was "Yeah, that's fuckin' dumb." Unless he's bluffing! 
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Oct 23, 2012 11:48
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TalonDemonKing posted:Friend of mine is running Silver Age Sentinels. Fairly rail-roady DM, but we're having fun with it. We're playing the bad guys, and while a bit sluggish, the dialogue coming out of it is amazing. That sounds like an episode of The Tick. A wonderful episode of The Tick.
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Oct 23, 2012 14:59
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Well, to be fair, a program that would so radically alter the programming of literally every droid in the galaxy does contradict vast chunks of what we know about droids, both in his game and in the canon; it's akin to saying you've written a program that will let you control every computer on Earth, even though they use different operating systems and some of them aren't even networked to anything. It's not IG-88 he dislikes, it's that storyline.
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Oct 23, 2012 22:57
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Zemyla posted:To be fair, he did suborn a droid factory and make the droids manufactured there subservient to him. So not every droid, but a good chunk of them.
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Oct 24, 2012 03:43
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DCB: When you say he does compsci, does he just prevent you from pulling hollywood bullshit with computers, or what?
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Oct 24, 2012 04:05
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Colon V posted:Done right, it could be really Manchurian. Done wrong, it's a colossal Deus Ex Machina. Yeah, done right it can be awesome (hell, I pulled the same 'suborn droids with foreign programming' bit myself, but even that was limited to droids I could get my hands on or find some other way of flashing the new programming to their systems); the trouble is that, at least by my estimation, the IG-88 story didn't hit the right notes. It was less 'suspense tale where all the droids might or might not be working against their owners' and more 'look how devious the assassin droid can be muahahaha.' SpookyLizard posted:DCB: When you say he does compsci, does he just prevent you from pulling hollywood bullshit with computers, or what? It's not that I can't do Magic Computer Bullshit - it's that I have to make said bullshit vaguely plausible. For example, when we took over HoloNet Central, it would have been very easy to say 'well, you can ID every ship in the Galaxy now,' but that would have been kinda crap. Instead he pointed out how ship ID and the device ID of the HoloNet unit on each ship may not match up; there's no "phone book" for the system, as it were. Plus, I can't use it to pinpoint a ship's location; I can only use it to see which HoloNet relay it's pinging, a la a cellular phone network. Still useful, but not necessarily game-breaking, you know? I can't, for instance, hack into an enemy ship from my own ship. There's no network connection. The closest I can do is maybe piggyback a signal into their communications, and those are firewalled away from critical ship systems. Hell, I can't even hide on the outer hull of a Star Destroyer and hack in, because there's no connection; when the Imperial Navy upgrades their computers they park the things in drydock and actually haul in a cable to make a connection internally. It's this kind of actual thinking about how the Empire regards informational security that keeps me on my toes a bit. He knows far, far more about computers than I do, and I can tell it's kind of tough for him sometimes to separate 'what DCB is telling me is inadequate' and 'what DCB's character knows would be enough to make this work,' but he does a fine job; there've been several times where I'll say "I'll do X" and he'll say "well, you can't, because of these reasons, but you could probably try doing Y or Z and get a similar result." EDIT: Hey, our GM has told me there's going to be a roughly two month in-game timeskip between last session and the next; I'm planning on putting together an email of poo poo I intend to try in said timeskip, with the provision that many plans might be ended by, you know, a roving Death Star. Once I get it written out, would there be any interest in posting a copy in here? It's not really a 'gaming experience,' since the game has yet to happen and all, but if people are interested I figure I can stretch the definitions a little for entertainment's sake, yes? DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Oct 24, 2012 |
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Oct 24, 2012 04:20
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:would there be any interest in yes
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Oct 24, 2012 04:35
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:would there be any interest in posting a copy in here? It's not really a 'gaming experience,' since the game has yet to happen and all, but if people are interested I figure I can stretch the definitions a little for entertainment's sake, yes? The answer is always yes. I'm really enjoying your tales (and I'm sure everyone else is too).
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Oct 24, 2012 04:40
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