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I shared all of these (awesome) ideas with my buddy who is running a different campaign, and after discussing them and trying to tailor them to fit our group, here is what we came up with: The rival is part of a different adventuring party who was captured by some monster or other enemy. The party runs into a well-to-do member of that group that is trying to rescue his companions and offers the party a large sum of gold/items for assisting in the rescue. Once the threat is eliminated (with the friendly NPC at full health because he wasn't part of the fight) the party realizes that one of the captives is none other than the unfriendly gnome NPC they had been trying to track down. They then have the choice to: -Engage the entire other party immediately without having full hitpoints/spells. -Convince the 'friendly' NPC that they have unfinished business with his companion and to stand aside. -Accept the reward and make sure the rival knows he will be dealt with later. -Use this as an opportunity to change the rivalry from 'attack on sight' to more of a 'friendly competition' situation. I've been thinking of introducing the other adventuring party for some time now. I like the idea of another group that the players get along with for the most part, but has one or two members that are in conflict with some party members.
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Dec 25, 2012 00:20
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Hey guys, maybe you could give me some inspiration. I'm stuck on what my next episode should be for the group. I know point D, but I need B and C. Last week the players lost a relic to this season's bad guy, who escaped with barely a wound (they had some bad rolls), and were beat up to boot. They now know that the baddie is searching for the two other relics (green stones which do something to their bearers. The last bearer they found had turned into some hideous ghoul). So here's what I want to accomplish in next week's session: 1. Introduce them to the "handler", an old man who has a lot of cthulhu mythos knowledge and can better prep the players. 2. Have them seek out and get the other relic before the baddie. 2a. I want them to have a moral dilemma when they find the bearer. Something that puts them in the position of either killing the creature or letting them go, but neither one is easy to swallow. Let me know if you guys have any ideas.
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Dec 25, 2012 18:25
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This isn't a particularly great idea, but how about : Start them off learning the location of one of the other relics via some major news source or rumor mill depending on theme. Essentially some museum or Indiana Jones type has found one of the relics and is transporting it via [X] to [LOCATION]. The party hightail it over just in time to find out that the relic is a fake. Maybe have some minor fights or drama of some kind, but this whole mini-plot is to meet the handler guy who has also been sucked in by the scam. They talk about the relics, slowly come to understand that they both understand what is happening or whatever. He can tell them whatever it is they need to know. The Handler also explains that he has heard about the location of another relic (which wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility considering he's learned about these things). He's come to the museum transport because it was closer, but he can give the location of the other relic to the players, either for free or in exchange for something. They go there and find the bearer is a super sweet dude. They come to his shack in the woods or whatever and he says that the relic is just some old trinket he keeps hanging around and that they can have it on one condition, they spend the evening with him because he so rarely gets visitors and they look tired from the trip. Make him a vaguely viking-like guy who offers them hospitality, food, drink and song when they visit. Really play up how friendly and cheerful and partying this guy is so that they come to like him. Treat any mention of the relic fairly dismissively, but not evasively. Eventually it gets late and he tells them to stay the night and they can have it first thing in the morning. Next morning he wakes them with beer and bacon and tells them to stay another day. Slowly make it apparent he won't ever hand it over. Respond to threats fairly jovially, offer more beer, more food etc. Eventually it will come to a point where they physically have to take it, then BAM the minute they try the dude becomes Golum with the serial numbers taken off. He's far more pitiful than he is powerful. Make it different enough physically that they don't go "that's Golum", but have the same idea - this character has become dependent on the relic. If they try and take it by force, maybe he puts up a bit of a fight, but make him weaker than the players. If the players give him a beat down let them have the relic without killing him, but the moment they try and take it away they notice that the bearer is being literally tortured as their proximity to the relic decreases. Have him rot away or age dramatically or something.
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Dec 25, 2012 18:44
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Captain_Indigo posted:Golum with the serial numbers taken off. I'm also stealing this.
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Dec 25, 2012 21:03
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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A variation on that idea: The party walks past an elderly hobo on the street. He's talking to a piece of rock about how he's lost his job and his house and his wife and his children and everything, but he'll get through it because he still has his dad, and he doesn't know what he'd do without him. The artifact is a family heirloom, and he thinks it's his father, who's actually dead (his death could also be a plot hook, if you want). It reminds him of better times, and without it he has nothing to live for. If the party tries to take it, he'll try to stop them from taking his father away from him, but he's old and feeble. If they let him live, he breaks down. Maybe he jumps in front of a car. Maybe he steals a gun and goes on a shooting spree a few days later. If they kill him, they just murdered a homeless man who hadn't done anything bad to anyone, though you could argue they were putting him out of his misery.
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Dec 26, 2012 02:16
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Sam. posted:A variation on that idea: Hrm. 'You lose/you lose' plotting is kinda gauche. Not that I haven't done it, but still.
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Dec 26, 2012 09:13
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But in Cthulhu, isn't that what it's really all about?
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Dec 26, 2012 15:13
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Or maybe the party decides to figure out a way to get the homeless guy actually talking to the spirit of his father, who could convince the homeless guy that the artifact isn't his father. It's lose/lose if the party makes it that way, but there are options! The seance angle can also lead them further down a Mythos rabbit hole.
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Dec 26, 2012 16:04
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sebmojo posted:Hrm. 'You lose/you lose' plotting is kinda gauche. Not that I haven't done it, but still. It's only 'you lose/you lose' if the party goes for either of the easy solutions. Note that 'find a way to get the old man some psychiatric help' isn't covered, nor is 'convince the guy his father's spirit has moved to a different object - or ideally a place, a place where he can stay and be warm and get fed' or any of a number of creative responses. There should always be a solution if the players are canny enough to find - or create - it.
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Dec 26, 2012 23:41
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I'd be equally careful with "find the creative solution." After one or two of those it gets annoying to play guess at esoteric stuff the DM isn't remotely hinting at.
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Dec 27, 2012 01:02
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Razorwired posted:I'd be equally careful with "find the creative solution." After one or two of those it gets annoying to play guess at esoteric stuff the DM isn't remotely hinting at. Oh, granted - it's not a thing you want to plan out, because no one wants to play the Read The GM's Mind game. But it's still an important point - there's very few lose/lose scenarios when you apply yourself a bit. Just don't COUNT on that sort of application.
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Dec 27, 2012 01:47
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Oh, granted - it's not a thing you want to plan out, because no one wants to play the Read The GM's Mind game. But it's still an important point - there's very few lose/lose scenarios when you apply yourself a bit. Just don't COUNT on that sort of application. I may think up a few okay-ish solutions to a problem I confront my players with, but they usually think up more interesting solutions themselves. The GM's job is to think up obstacles, help players flesh out exciting solutions and then present consequences that make sense. If the players think of a way to get the rock and make the hobo's life better and it makes sense, just roll with it. "That could work! But you'll need to..." and then you give them some requirements to make their idea an interesting challenge that involves all of the party's members in interesting ways. Players should always be rewarded for thinking up fun and interesting solutions to problems. It means the GM's gotta think faster on his feet and react to what's going on in the fiction, but that's what players do all the time anyway so why shouldn't the GM get the chance to as well?
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Dec 27, 2012 03:06
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So I'm most of the way through this thread and it's been a big help so far, but I've got a few questions on a new campaign im running. It's set after the end of the world has occurred. Demons, Devils and all horrible things have fought the mortals and their celestial allies and won. Most mortal life has been wiped out with the exception of one last city. Most of my games have been very structured and preplanned but I'm going to try and go in a much more random encounter direction. My players seem to love randomness. What I was thinking was to have a series of charts and such that I can roll against for when the PCs are exploring the world outside the city. With a good, natural and bad chart that's leads to an encounter, etc. One idea I had was that for every hour (or part of the day or something) that they are outside, I add an extra die to the encounter rolls and take the higher result, ie the worse one. This should give a sense of increasing threat being outside the walls. I'll have weather effects and other little things. So I guess what I want to know is, has anyone done anything similar? Any traps I should watch out for? I should mention ill be using pathfinder.
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Dec 27, 2012 03:18
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madadric posted:I may think up a few okay-ish solutions to a problem I confront my players with, but they usually think up more interesting solutions themselves. The GM's job is to think up obstacles, help players flesh out exciting solutions and then present consequences that make sense. I agree. I should have elaborated that I was mainly talking about things like . the above hobo situation. In 90% of games the GM should have written one winning outcome. It can be harder than the losses or have some form of cost bit it should be something that fits the style of the game. Resolving on a positive note shouldn't rely on the Bard deciding he's gonna Bluff check the whole town into believing the bum is the tax collector.
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Dec 27, 2012 04:19
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Zkoto posted:So I'm most of the way through this thread and it's been a big help so far, but I've got a few questions on a new campaign im running. You should let them use survival skills to modify the chart rolls, like having a ranger roll twice and take the lower roll, etc. You can probably get reasonable charts online, this is a thing a lot of nerds have made in the past. Googling seems to get a lot of results. One thing to watch out for is to avoid the random encounters derailing the whole game. Get a feel for the tone and roll when it feels appropriate but not when it will bog the whole party down in some unwinnable bullshit fight on the way back from the dungeon. As always, roll behind your screen and feel free to lie about it.
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Dec 27, 2012 16:17
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Zkoto posted:So I'm most of the way through this thread and it's been a big help so far, but I've got a few questions on a new campaign im running. I personally don't see the fun in a setting where the world has been utterly conquered by the forces of evil except for one city, because there's nowhere to go. Why would they venture outside the walls? Why is there anything "good" or "natural" outside the walls when the evil was strong enough to defeat all mortals and their celestial allies? But that is not what you asked! I am inferring (I hope correctly) that you have more of a plot than "outside of NiceTown, it's devils all the way down, so watch out for that if you leave", so you might consider a shorter list of prepared (interesting) random encounters. Some of them can be good, mostly bad, but have the luck-pushing something partly or mostly under the players' control (like Liesmith's survival rolls). Perhaps the problem, aside from random devils frolicking in the countryside surrounding NiceTown, is the rain. The burning, acid rain, the one that makes every encounter more deadly. Perhaps it strengthens certain enemy types, or creates environmental hazards (such as pools of acid) to which many enemies are immune, or just hurts if it lands on bare skin. Let the players go where they wish, but clouds in the sky should make them cautious, and make them want to do survival rolls to find shelter if the rain starts; if they get one of the "tough" prepared encounters on your shorter list AND it's a downpour, watch out.
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Dec 27, 2012 17:24
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Thanks for the advice all. I have some good ideas now to build on.
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Dec 28, 2012 03:16
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Are there any decent online resources for GMs to keep notes and stuff on campaigns? I tend to come up with ideas, work on them for a while, and then get bored. Eventually I'll return to a campaign a few times until it becomes polished enough to run. Unfortunately I tend to lose files or written notes, so notes tend to be lost sometimes. So if I had a place to keep all the notes, things would get finished much sooner. I could always start a blog or something and set it to private, but I'd prefer something dedicated to the purpose.
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Dec 29, 2012 01:53
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Does anyone have a good site or list with potential applications of skills? I'm trying to make a "Skills in combat" style encounter in 4e and I'm just kinda stumped on what skills would actually do what. So far all I have is a Religion check at an altar giving the character the ability to grant someone in the party an extra use of an encounter power and an Athletics check to knock over a scaffold serving as a sniper's nest.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:31
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Project1 posted:Are there any decent online resources for GMs to keep notes and stuff on campaigns? I tend to come up with ideas, work on them for a while, and then get bored. Eventually I'll return to a campaign a few times until it becomes polished enough to run. Unfortunately I tend to lose files or written notes, so notes tend to be lost sometimes. Well, there's always online note-taking tools like Evernote. They're not exactly specifically for GMs but it's harder to lose than paper.
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Dec 29, 2012 04:27
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Project1 posted:Are there any decent online resources for GMs to keep notes and stuff on campaigns? I tend to come up with ideas, work on them for a while, and then get bored. Eventually I'll return to a campaign a few times until it becomes polished enough to run. Unfortunately I tend to lose files or written notes, so notes tend to be lost sometimes. http://www.obsidianportal.com/ Might be along the lines of what you're looking for, with it also doubling as a player resource when you actually run the campaigns
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Dec 29, 2012 06:58
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I really like Google Docs for easy access. I flip around between my laptop and desktop pretty frequently and I've had to travel to GM and it's nice to borrow someone's laptop, crack open Google Docs, and have all of your notes right there.
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Dec 29, 2012 09:16
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I've come up with some a crazy idea, but I need some help expanding onto it. The jist is, through a long series of events, a dreaming child's dream becomes the Netherworld. It's inhabitants are Demons, and while they are still 'Real', the Netherworld is still something that is influenced by the Dreamer. Because the dreamer is a child, everything is sort of... skewed. If we take a perspective of a child; with that limited understanding, and apply it to the world, what do we get? A silver mine would always have silver in it, because that's the definition of it -- If it didn't, it'd be called an empty silver mine or such. Therefore, in the Netherworld, if you have a 'Silver Mine', you basically have an infinite amount of silver, so long as the mine is known. Taking stuff to it's basics, and applying it in hard fashion is sort of what I need. A city has people in it; so if you build a city, the 'Dream' will populate the city with people. If a person is a Blacksmith, they will have large muscles, because that is a trait of a Blacksmith. A house is a sturdy structure with four walls and a roof; so as long as you have at least that, your house will be structurally sound, without the need of support beams or the such. For people, this also goes true. If 'RicochetD20' was known as a great duelist; once the Dreamer reconizes that 'truth', Richochetd20 will become a great duelist, regardless if he was one before or not. Additionally, I'm also looking for weird quirks; Something that might have happened in the Dreamer's past that influences the current dreamstate. Ergo; People with blue eyes are scary, or all cats make people sneeze. If someone could give me some crazy views or ideas to expand upon this, I'd appreciate it greatly.
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Dec 29, 2012 13:54
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The one which occurs to me right off the bat is that parents are akin to deities - seemingly omnipresent and omniscient, and capable of bestowing great gifts and harsh punishments. That said, none are ever as powerful as the Dreamer's own (or selfimage thereof). Also, Brussels sprouts as an enemy.
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Dec 29, 2012 14:26
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Suggestion: size disparities from being a child. Furniture and other objects are huge, interior/exterior geometry of buildings and locations doesn't match up, and distances and travel times are skewed.
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Dec 29, 2012 17:52
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RicochetD20 posted:http://www.obsidianportal.com/ Might be along the lines of what you're looking for, with it also doubling as a player resource when you actually run the campaigns It looks interesting, and I do have the time to learn how to use it since I won't have the chance to run anything for the next few months. Only problem is that the unpaid version only lets you have two campaigns, and I usually have more than that on the back burner. I'll just have to go with Docs or something. TalonDemonKing posted:I've come up with some a crazy idea, but I need some help expanding onto it. Two things to remember that haven't been mentioned yet is the way that children don't have a full understanding of language, and have a lot of misconceptions about the way the world works. For language, if you feel like messing with that, you could cause a lot of confusion for your players if a certain word actually means something else. Perhaps they might find themselves in trouble because of the misunderstanding. Not sure how you'd make that into an enjoyable experience, though. For examples of misconceptions, this thread should give you plenty of ideas, or at least examples of how it works.
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Dec 29, 2012 18:46
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TalonDemonKing posted:If someone could give me some crazy views or ideas to expand upon this, I'd appreciate it greatly. A lot of the raw strangeness would vary depending on the age of the dreamer. A seven or eight year old in their "boys are gross / girls have cooties" might skew the Netherworld toward strict gender segregation or a literal war of the sexes. A younger child who can't even see over the kitchen countertop might dream a world where acquiring anything desirable always requires you to climb. A kid in late elementary school is forming powerful social bonds which start to compete with the parents, so their Netherworld might have magic which only works if you have two or more people working together. The home environment is fertile ground for twisting into strangeness depending on how the child relates to / copes with it.. Parents who can't stop arguing could manifest as political strife like bickering demonic councils or a civil war. If the kid's coping mechanism is hiding in their closet with a blanket and a teddy bear until mom and dad stop yelling, then certain dark, warm places might have restorative or protective powers - or they might simply make everything outside of them 'stop' until you step outside again, but the problem is still there. Mom drinks too much? Alcohol literally transforms people in to monsters. Money's tight and the kid doesn't understand why? Famine and poverty are the Netherworld's status quo, for no reason anyone can determine, and no matter how hard anyone works conditions never improve. Personal insecurities would also work. If the child is dyslexic, reading and writing become arcane disciplines, difficult to practice, almost impossible to master, and conferring great and subtle power on their wielders. You could get a lot of good material by figuring out first what the kid's real life is like. Check out some developmental psychology pages and find an age where kids typically have some issues that you're interested in exploring, then twist and exaggerate them.
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Dec 29, 2012 21:54
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I'm coming up on my second session of a very fun 4e Eberron game and I'd like some advice on where to go next. We're currently running Seekers of the Ashen Crown (just got out of Ashurta's tomb) but as the goon in the group has played the module before, I'd like to add a twist ending, which I'm hoping you guys can help me expand on. Stuff in bold is where I most need help. (ZeroDotJander don't read this) The changeling posing as Tikulti (here called by a code name, Serpent) isn't working for Breland or the Claw, but for the Keepers of Thronehold, an international counter-intelligence organization seeking to keep the Last War from re-igniting. The whole Ashen Crown debacle is an elaborate trap for Demise; Serpent has made duplicates of the solitaire and orb. The idea is to trick Demise into trying to use the Crown to become immortal, but needs Ashurta's Blade to pull it off. The PC's continued interference earns Serpent's respect, and when they return to the tomb, he offers to let them join the Keepers. If they accept and join the Keepers, we all reconcile with Breland and they get to be Spy Heroes. What can I run next, after Seekers but prior to Dead for a Spell? If they don't accept and everyone hates them, should I keep the spy-game stuff going or switch to a different paradigm, like Old West outlaws? Whatever happens I want the campaign to stay linear until paragon, then turn into a sandbox for awhile. How do you run a good sandbox campaign, where the players decide where to go every week and you come up with an adventure to match?
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Dec 30, 2012 00:31
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Does anyone have advice as to how to convert D&D 3.5 into a more strategic/urban plotting and scheming role playing game rather than a hack and slash? Also, to add to realism and tone, I'm wanting to use d20 Call of Cthulhu insanity charts for dealing with things like Planar Powers and Mind Flayers. Is this a bad idea? I'm a new DM, and have more experience playing Shadowrun and similar style GURPS campaigns. But D&D is the system my players know, and they are open to more of a thinking-man's RPG so I'm running that. I'm starting the campaign in the Forgotten Realms city of Saerloon if that helps.
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Dec 31, 2012 07:34
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God Of Paradise posted:Does anyone have advice as to how to convert D&D 3.5 into a more strategic/urban plotting and scheming role playing game rather than a hack and slash? I'd suggest using a different system for a strategic/urban plotting and scheming game. Try PDQ, it's really simple and allows for all sorts of flavor.
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Dec 31, 2012 08:02
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So I've decided to try and run a short Star Wars game for a few people. I'm looking for something reasonably crunchy - I like the sound of the recent dramatic dice thing, but I doubt I could pull that off well since I'm a total newbie to running (or playing!) a traditional RPG. What system(s) should I try? I'm vaguely familiar with the system used in KotoR, which looked like a d20 system to me - does that work well enough? Since it'll be a short campaign, I'd like it to start with something dramatic, go into some sort of investigation or heavy role playing segment, and end with a great big action segment. Fairly linear, I suppose, but I want to keep it simple for myself. Any advice on how to structure that sort of thing? I'm thinking "crash landing on a remote planet, trek to find away off planet or signal for help" would be a good hook. Edit: Oh yeah, and any programs good for running a game over the computer would be a big help, since at least one player won't likely be able to be physically present.
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Dec 31, 2012 09:01
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Jon Joe posted:I'd suggest using a different system for a strategic/urban plotting and scheming game. Try PDQ, it's really simple and allows for all sorts of flavor. Maybe I'm misrepresenting my question. We are using D&D 3.5, hands down, as it's what people know. Any advice on running a strategic urban campaign for a thief heavy party in D&D? I've watched Spoony's stories on Thieves World already, after the players rolled up a Tiefling thief, an acrobat thief, a bard, a barbarian, and a drunken monk, and expressed interest in running a gritty campaign. Edit: I mean, when I introduced the idea of a D&D game the girl who's playing the tiefling thief, she made her character essentially a drug cook and then the bard, he decided to make a street dealer. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Dec 31, 2012 |
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Dec 31, 2012 09:33
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The problem is that you're going to basically be rebuilding 3.5 D&D to make it do something it is legitimately bad at doing. I guess my advice would be don't put any undead, constructs, plants, full-casters, or oozes in encounters. Also, halve the suggested challenge ratings. The main problem you'll have is that most of the interesting bits of the campaign will be handled with the "social combat" skills, or role-play that is system agnostic.
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Dec 31, 2012 10:26
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Babylon Astronaut posted:The problem is that you're going to basically be rebuilding 3.5 D&D to make it do something it is legitimately bad at doing. I guess my advice would be don't put any undead, constructs, plants, full-casters, or oozes in encounters. Also, halve the suggested challenge ratings. If the game sucks I can always just send em to an adventure module I guess. In the Forgotten Realms setting, there's a big planar rift that transported the city next to theirs, so I suppose the rift growing is a good excuse to say "gently caress you, you wake up in Ravenloft, or on Sigil."
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Dec 31, 2012 10:55
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3.5 doesn't really have any rules governing intrigue, so you'll be RPing it anyway. Same with strategy. Outside of character optimization and filling out your prepared spells, there really isn't a game for hatching a brilliant plan. The best advice I can give you is that if you think there might be a rule regarding something outside of combat, crafting, and character advancement, don't bother looking. There is a tiny bit of kingdom rules in the DMG, but it's mostly for random generation. Use D20srd.org instead of the core rulebooks. Ravenloft is cool in that it intentionally subverts traditional D&D behavior. It also has built in sanity rules. With a party of mid-tier classes you will be able to keep the villains threatening and it sounds like their character backgrounds have their own morality plays built in. Ravenloft very well could be where the party ends up if they decide to sell potions of quest-to-drink-more-potions. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Dec 31, 2012 |
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Dec 31, 2012 12:02
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God Of Paradise posted:Does anyone have advice as to how to convert D&D 3.5 into a more strategic/urban plotting and scheming role playing game rather than a hack and slash? As a bunch of other people have said, I think running with D&D 3.5 is going to be an impediment to this, but if your group really are set on using 3.5e (have you suggested alternatives?) then it could be made to work. Right now I'm running a 4e campaign that is very heavy on the plotting and duplicity in between fights: really, the thing is just to be ready to GM-fiat a lot more than you would do with regular D&D, since D&D doesn't have rules for a lot of the things you'll be trying to do. One thing I might recommend if you're looking at a negotiation-heavy campaign is Rich Burlew's overhaul of the Diplomacy rules, they're pretty good. I've never been personally that impressed by CoC's insanity rules -- rolling to determine a kind of insanity (do they still feature that?) seems a lot less fun than picking something appropriate to what just happened. Unknown Armies has a very slick system, if you've ever read that.
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Dec 31, 2012 13:18
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God Of Paradise posted:Maybe I'm misrepresenting my question. We are using D&D 3.5, hands down, as it's what people know. These are incompatible goals. You can either run a game of intrigue and strategy, or you can run a game using the world's premier fantasy combat engine. What you are asking is basically "where do I weld the wings on if I want to get my submarine airborne?"
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Dec 31, 2012 18:34
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To be fair, I'm running an awesome Eberron game where spy games are at play basically all the time. That's a setting where the intrigue is built-in, though, and while you could shoehorn it into a FR game you'd be stuck making up basically everything, and you still won't have rules governing it besides "roll Bluff/Diplomacy as necessary".
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Dec 31, 2012 18:54
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God Of Paradise posted:Does anyone have advice as to how to convert D&D 3.5 into a more strategic/urban plotting and scheming role playing game rather than a hack and slash? You don't have to 'convert' anything. Just stat up some NPCs and make a plot. This guy is a doppleganger replacement for XYZ evil guild. That guy is a polymorphed dragon running the such and such cartel. The players start out working for a beholder and don't know it. Just flesh the game out. Define about five factions with basic goals for each, have the players start working for one, plot will happen. Sembia is a great setting for something like that. It's a huge merchant nation with a seedy underbelly of slave trading and whatnot. The little blurb on Saerloon in the campaign guide lists like 5 factions at play right off the bat. You should be fine.
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Dec 31, 2012 19:16
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| # ? May 13, 2024 18:27 |
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God Of Paradise posted:Maybe I'm misrepresenting my question. We are using D&D 3.5, hands down, as it's what people know. Do skill challenges, not just encounters. Not all traps are just darts in cupboard, make them big, over the top James-Bond-Esque style deathmachines and give them Xp for winning (actually, disregard this, discard XP entirely and have them level up when appropriate.) Spend most of your time on social encounters, don't use enemies that can't be backstabbed UNLESS you've given the players a way to backstab it, don't use any "save or die/suck" spells against your pcs. Do use casters cleverly - a mage with slippers of spider climb can be an interesting encounter... use blasty mages if you're going to use full casters, things that reflex saves will shine against. Don't let the bard use charm person to negate social encounters, do let the bard use charm person to win a social encounter going terribly. In this type of game, fail it forward is extremely important - failing to pick a lock means that the city watch is getting closer, or the lock is jammed and now it has to be bashed in, adding a time limit. Have a "planning sessions" for any major thief activities where they are able to get their hands on building layouts, loot location, guard movements, etc... and let them plan it out on the board. On location, give them skill challenges to stick to the plan. Let their plans work, but narrate in a dramatic fashion. Get them involved with some kind of guild or professional organization that's taking a cut of their profits to motivate them to escape/unmake/take over said guild/organization. Get them blackmail on important people as part of their jobs, feed them possible ideas on how to build a power base. Don't make them do any of that - if they have fun robbing/stealing/selling drugs or whatever don't try to force them to do anything else. If they go a drug dealing angle, you can take them dungeoneering for exotic ingredients. Whatever you do, don't try to turn the game into a classic D&D style if that's not what they're invested in, and be really careful about save or effect spells against rogues because they usually don't involve reflex saves and they will take players out of the game. Also make sure they can backstab everything they're fighting, or the fights are going to be long boring slogfests.
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Dec 31, 2012 20:48
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