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NPC voice chat: My campaign features a couple accents: dwarves are Scottish (as usual), kobolds are Arabic ("Hello, my friend!"), orcs are Russian ("Greetings, comrades!"), the doppelganger that the party spared the death penalty (named Sven) has some sort of German accent and tends to fumble with words. Feel free to mix poo poo up and get unconventional; doesn't matter if your accents are "good" or "realistic" or "convincing", just memorable. Also, I have a companion NPC healer who never swears (so you know poo poo Just Got Real when he does) and a ranger|rogue who curses up a blue streak all the time and is a pushy jerk. One military commander is a stressed-out desk-jockey and the other is a self-assured and seasoned backroom dealer. Point is, keep that stuff in mind when you RP that character, and it'll enrich the performance. It's that whole "what's my motivation"-thing actors always say. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 21:33 on May 7, 2013 |
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May 7, 2013 21:30
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I find body language at least as helpful as voices. Stand up and move around a little, incorporate your posture, the movement of your hands, where you put your eyes and so on. I have a relatively deep voice with a limited range, so 'speaking' with body language has been invaluable for me when I need to portray characters who aren't traditionally associated with baritones.
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May 8, 2013 00:43
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Yup. The other thing is you can describe body language OR act it out. Also, music to set the tone. I've probably mentioned that no less than 3 times in this thread v  v
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May 8, 2013 00:55
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So I'm getting my players back together for a new campaign after a long hiatus. I had them roll up some new characters in 4th Edition D&D, which is what we're all happy with, plus some stuff I shamelessly stole from 13th Age to help flesh out their characters and get them invested in the world. The game is mostly a sandbox, with me peppering the landscape with plots, factions, and NPCs for them to interact with. The setting is basically a massive city, built up with level on top of level, but the characters are starting out on an "environment rescue" level, where a landscape from a different world has been shifted over to save it from some calamity. They'll start out stranded and eventually work their way back to civilization. Here's my problem: the last campaign ended after the group threw me a curveball and decided to fight a group of relatively-friendly NPCs. I could handle that normally, as they were leaning towards the murderhobo style of play anyways. But one character, a monk who always specified that his character didn't kill people, sided with the NPCs. And so, the players fought him, and he of course ended up losing. I tried to give him a few outs along the way so that he might change his mind, but he was adamant. After that, nobody seemed to want to play anymore. It's been about six months now, so I rounded them all up and they all want to play again. But now, a different player, who happens to be the one who instigated the murderhobo tendencies from before, has rolled a Warlord with the explicit desire to be evil. Now, I don't use alignment in my games, but still, the rest of the party is generally heroic/pragmatic, but this guy seems to be set on playing an evil character and forcing everyone to go along with him because he's the one with the healing powers. The player is cool and usually not a problem at all, so it's confusing as to why he'd want to play a character like this. But regardless, is there some way to rein him in or keep control over the character without just flat-out telling him "No, you can't play the character you want to play?" I think that's a pretty uncool move, but I don't want this to break up the game, because we all love playing so much.
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May 8, 2013 04:10
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I think it's a time you're gonna have to do exactly that. Just politely tell him that last time this escalated it killed the game and you don't want to risk that happening again. Part of the social contract of tabletop is that nobody will try hijacking the game to tell their story. Playing the healer isn't a reason to play against the mood of the game. It'd be like saying I get all the loot because I brought pizza.
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May 8, 2013 04:38
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Serf posted:The player is cool and usually not a problem at all, so it's confusing as to why he'd want to play a character like this. But regardless, is there some way to rein him in or keep control over the character without just flat-out telling him "No, you can't play the character you want to play?" I think that's a pretty uncool move, but I don't want this to break up the game, because we all love playing so much. Think of it a different way; You've proposed a sci-fi space opera game and everyone rolls up characters like the ship captain, the security officer and the medical bay doctor except for one guy who rolls up Gandalf the Grey, wizard of light. That's an extreme example but the point is that there's no good reason to allow a character that goes against the theme of the game. The theme is more than just the setting and the system, it's the general thrust of the story. This can be hard to determine in a sandbox game but it's something that should be discussed by the group collectively beforehand to avoid just this sort of problem.
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May 8, 2013 05:34
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Serf posted:Here's my problem: the last campaign ended after the group threw me a curveball. A different player, who happens to be the one who instigated the murderhobo tendencies from before, has rolled a Warlord with the explicit desire to be evil. Now, I don't use alignment in my games, but still, the rest of the party is generally heroic/pragmatic, but this guy seems to be set on playing an evil character and forcing everyone to go along with him because he's the one with the healing powers. I usually like to give people enough rope to hang themselves, and hope they prove me wrong. I'd talk to your Warlord alone and away from the table, and remind him how the last campaign ground to a halt. Tell him you think his evil warlord is starting to send things down the same path. You'll give him some lattitude to play the character he wants to play, but if you think he's starting to derail the campaign so that its not fun for everyone else, you'll ask him privately to either cut it or leave the group.
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May 8, 2013 05:52
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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Um... Anyone here ever ran Spelljammer? I heard it was a campaign setting nobody liked. I'm not going to, but I really have a hard on for making my party stow-aways aboard a Mind Flayer vessel. Anything I should know about D&D characters in space, pirating on the astral sea? Anything, like dumb rules I should definitely avoid when running that? It's also a D&D setting game that's been updated to Pathfinder rules. Is this even doable in Pathfinder? God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 21:27 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 07:45
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So here's a crazy idea I had and I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to balance it. Basically, I want to run a 4e Monster Hunter type campaign, all Primal style with nature spirits and giant beasts and whatnot. I want a mechanic whereby the players can build their own weapons from their kills. I've been fiddling around in CBLoader homebrew stuff and I have a system where a player can take a blank base weapon (with no properties or groups, initially), and add on their own properties to it in a modular way. The idea is ok, you killed a dinosaur and ripped off its horns - you now bolt them to your weapon and it's a Heavy Blade. Or braided the leather from its pelt to make it a Flail. Or serrated the edge of your weapon with its teeth to make it Brutal. So, fun stuff. How the heck do I balance it? I'm thinking a limit of two weapon groups and two properties for each weapon (seems pretty in line with the vanilla stuff) but I'm not sure how to set damage up. Assuming they could buy it with some sort of currency, I'm trying to figure out what prices are appropriate. Something like set up damage tiers such that weapons with the Two-Handed property have the highest damage dice, and things like Light Blades have the lowest dice. Thoughts?
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May 8, 2013 18:54
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Yeah, I don't think you can screw with the damage dice of weapons too much in 4e. If anything maybe you could use the die-size track from the equipment section of the PHB and upgrade things slightly. Or homebrew your own, like upgrade 1d8 to 2d4 or 1d12 to 2d6 as a pretty easy example. I know in the 4e thread someone suggested adding "Brutal" to stuff, that's also good. A thing I use in my homebrew that you could maybe make into a weapon Property is "re-roll any 2s or 3s until you get a different result; treat 1s as max damage" Other than that, as far as magical stuff goes and magic item powers, maybe just try and keep it in line with how many your average PC should expect to have +/- a couple?
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May 9, 2013 00:59
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dog kisser posted:So here's a crazy idea I had and I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to balance it. Basically, I want to run a 4e Monster Hunter type campaign, all Primal style with nature spirits and giant beasts and whatnot. I want a mechanic whereby the players can build their own weapons from their kills. This sounds really cool, actually. But I have no idea how you'd make it work, let alone balance it.
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May 9, 2013 01:11
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I wouldn't worry too much about balance, tbh. Just amp up the monsters to compensate, if you need to.
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May 9, 2013 02:13
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I'm playing around with something like this. Heavy Frame - 1d10, +2 Proficiency Light Frame - 1d6, +3 Proficiency Light Ranged Frame - 1d6, +3 Proficiency, x2 Range modifier Heavy Ranged Frame - 2d4, +2 Proficiency, x2 Range modifier [Two-Handed] - Increases damage die by one Any frame can be used with a melee or ranged weapon, but melee frames deal more damage, whereas ranged frames increase the range of your weapon. Basically, if you had a Heavy Frame Bow, you have more damage with a range of 5/10 vs a Heavy Ranged Frame Bow that does less damage but has a range of 10/20. The only issue I can see is that in general fights happen at much closer ranges and it's way better to have higher damage than high range, but I can't think of a better way to distinguish between them. So basically it goes [Base] + [Choice of Frame] + [Choice of Two-Handed or not] + [Up to Two Groups] + [Up to Two Properties] and then that weapon can be enchanted. I know I'm overcomplicating this like crazy but from my test runthroughs of the system with people they seem to dig it. Stuff I've liked that I've seen was Heavy Frame/Unarmed/Heavy Blade/High Crit/Brutal 1 (overpowered/fun for brawlers) and Two-Handed Light Ranged Frame/Blowgun/Polearm (described as a staff that can shoot needles). Does it seem completely untenable?
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May 9, 2013 18:55
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Is there any online text sharing tool that supports monospaced fonts, tab, single line spacing, b/i/u and text/background color tools, preferably without the oddities of the roll20 character sheet editor? Edit: Basically google docs without being confined to the printer page structure. Asehujiko fucked around with this message at 19:52 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 19:42
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What about the spreadsheet in google docs? You can expand the page in either direction as far as you need and even create new pages, so your not constrained to a single A4 piece of paper. I don't think it supports tabs or text indentation natively, but its pretty easy to mess around with the column widths or merge cells until you find something that works.
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May 10, 2013 14:10
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How would you go about using plague as a plot device? It's silly to have the characters mysteriously immune (unless that's part of the plot), but I'm also not a brutal GM ("Hurry up and find a cure, or your character's dead!"). I want it to seem threatening, without being something that causes serious penalties or death.
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May 10, 2013 14:36
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Mysterious Cough of Death always works. Unless your characters are doctors or something they don't know how bad it is, and there's plenty of plagues that'd be resistant to Cure Disease type spells if it's a fantasy setting.
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May 10, 2013 14:46
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"We only have enough of this magical potion to inoculate [number of party members plus mad alchemist who's making the potions] people for [semi-arbitrary amount of time], and it won't cure anyone who's already afflicted! Help us gather the materials to make more / make a cure before the doses run out!" Edit: That way, the threat isn't so much "will we all die of the plague?" and instead becomes "will we run out of medication and THEN die of the plague?" which can be even more tense. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 14:57 on May 10, 2013 |
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May 10, 2013 14:51
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In most fantasy games the characters end up leaps and bounds beyond the regular folks in terms of financial ability sooner rather than later (they just tend to blow it all on swords from the dimension X instead of a mansion). So maybe there's a secret concoction of herbs that suppresses the symptoms but outside the adventurer scene only lords and kings can afford it, 95% of the population are screwed either way. Could make a nice hook for introducing a theme of social unrest. And maybe the plague itself does bad things when you eventually do die so no one's especially keen to just keep suppressing the symptoms for the rest of their life and call that a solution. You rise as a zombie would be the first thing that springs to mind, but it could be something more metaphysical like, it's quite literally the Devil's Disease, which is why no regular magical healing helps, plus if you die with that disease, you're going straight to hell. Actually, that'd make a nice campaign. Maybe after months and years of dealing with the disease itself and it's consequences, it turns out the disease is designed to kill gods and humans that end up in heaven are nothing but the disease vector. Gods simply can't risk that poo poo getting into their realm. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 16:33 on May 10, 2013 |
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May 10, 2013 14:56
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Project1 posted:How would you go about using plague as a plot device? It's silly to have the characters mysteriously immune (unless that's part of the plot), but I'm also not a brutal GM ("Hurry up and find a cure, or your character's dead!"). I want it to seem threatening, without being something that causes serious penalties or death. You could pull a Babylon 5/Crusade where the plague is super deadly, it just takes a few years to kill you. A few of your characters could be naturally immune. One of them might have gotten sick as a child with the Chicken Plague, and is now resistant. Maybe one of them was the subject of an experiment that made them immune to the plague. Maybe your wizard knows a ritual that gives them immunity to disease for 24 hours. Maybe the disease only effects humans, and fae are immune (which could lead to plot points where people try to use it whip up mobs against elves/eladrin)
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May 10, 2013 16:30
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Project1 posted:How would you go about using plague as a plot device? It's silly to have the characters mysteriously immune (unless that's part of the plot), but I'm also not a brutal GM ("Hurry up and find a cure, or your character's dead!"). I want it to seem threatening, without being something that causes serious penalties or death. What us your intended use of the plague as a plot driver? Is it just setting flavor (as in "Ooh look at all the oozing sores amongst the disenfranchised populace! Is not the lord unjust to his subjects!") or is it some kind of meta-game (as in "let's play RPG-Pandemic!") or does it set up a specific campaign objective (as in "Kill the Ooze-o-mancer who is perpetuating the plague!")? The GM goal of creating threats that are "threatening, without being something that causes serious penalties or death" is an interesting question on the abstract level. If the direct mechanical consequences of some game element are not serious, then with some very human intuitions about risk it is not something the players will see as a threat. But hammering the characters with a pervasive risk of mechanical penalties doesn't make for a threat - because random chance will eventually hit you with the penalty it is more of a inevitable punishment that you are resigned to experience than a threat to fear and avoid. To make a direct threat interesting you have to make the risk a choice, to make it a compelling choice there has to be a goal for which the threat provides a tradeoff of risk. In your case, you could make the plague require direct contact for transmission so the players can choose to ignore the plague wards and choose to avoid contact with plague bearers, but then you put goals beyond that threat of exposure - sympathetic NPCs who need help, objectives for the campaign, etc - and let them do creative problem solving to minimize their risk in trying to achieve those goals. The other option is to use indirect threats, or story elements which never put the players at mechanical risk. In this case, what is at stake will be the player's goals and relationships rather than the players themselves. Perhaps as suggested previously, the players have access to innoculation that is not broadly available, but then the plague threatens to kill a campaign-vital NPC, or its effects are destabilizing regional society. In this case, think about what your players specifically value and use the plague to threaten that (and if they are sociopathic murderhobos then what you need is a plague of precious-metal dissolving microbes).
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May 10, 2013 17:00
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Welp I guess I'll be using a virtual tabletop. The Meat Dimension fucked around with this message at 18:01 on May 13, 2013 |
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May 11, 2013 05:15
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Project1 posted:How would you go about using plague as a plot device? It's silly to have the characters mysteriously immune (unless that's part of the plot), but I'm also not a brutal GM ("Hurry up and find a cure, or your character's dead!"). I want it to seem threatening, without being something that causes serious penalties or death. None of the PCs have to actually get the plague. They can be always "have a chance of getting the plague" but then they just never do. The thing is, if a PC ever gets the "super plague" that's going around, you basically have 2 choices: "Reroll new character" or "quest for plague cure!(whether temporary or permanent)". This is a kind of thing that works a lot better in stories and such and not actually games (such things do exist), by the by.
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May 12, 2013 05:58
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I would like some advice! Summer is coming up in a week, and I want to get my friends together for a D&D campaign; a modified 4e with some stuff from 13th age. However, I've also been playing ton of old RPGs and looking through my old RPG books. What I would like to do is include some sort of impetus for rest and relaxation, and maybe some kind of renown or faction system. The 4e DMGs don't to my knowledge, seem to have tips on how to work this in (if so could someone tell me where?). I'm also looking at how to make diseases a thing rather than the less than worrysome aspect they get in a DMG treatment. Maybe someone has experience with this and can help me out? Here are some things I am looking at working on: -Some sort of fatigue system, ties to healing surges maybe, that can be spent like a resource on challenges/encounters/etc. Food and drink could help you regain fatigue without having to take an extended rest. -Some sort of renown or ranking fame system: to be used also like a sort of currency with different factions: A cabal of secretive warlocks or a gang of thieves etc. -A reason to carry disease preventions, like a reserve of cash for a temple healer etc. Basically I would like to make catching disease a thing without it being too grognardian. I'm already planning to use weather as a sort of skill challenge, maybe I could do the same with disease -Maybe something like AD&D proficiencies for mundane skills that can be used for this stuff? Basically I want to create a game for my players that's a bit more than simple dungeon crawling; without taking the focus away from dungeon crawling. I want to bring in stuff that is kind of grognard-y but without making it a chore or useless micromanagement, trying to find a way to turn it into part of a game, and make it fit well and mesh. I want my players to have fun, socialize, have fun interacting with the world and still feel like heroes. So with this regard I'd love some help
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May 13, 2013 02:02
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Quantumfate posted:-Some sort of fatigue system, ties to healing surges maybe, that can be spent like a resource on challenges/encounters/etc. Food and drink could help you regain fatigue without having to take an extended rest. An idea I had (but haven't implemented yet) is maybe treat faction relations similar to a skill challenge? Like, in my game it's sorta gonna come down to 2 factions (as is often the case) and whichever faction you complete "missions" for, it causes the opposing faction to weaken or falter. When you pass/fail a certain number of missions, the 2 factions fight and your result throughout the campaign determines which key NPCs on either side die (I think the actual fight itself would be decided by who the PCs take up arms with, but gently caress around with this to your taste) The example for my case specifically is: working for the "emperor" to combat internal and external threats to the nation's sovereignty vs. seeking out the mysterious rebel leader, finding out his story, and getting him justice for the crimes the government committed against him and his family. As for the focus on R&R, I actually had a lot of success with just roleplaying that poo poo: "You just fought a small genocidal war against merlocs, killed a dragon, found out a bunch of clues and setting fluff, then wound up in a big city where there was a deeply emotionally draining meeting with a key story NPC where you learned their heartbreaking tale; It's time to take a step back." The example I gave was, imagine you have been working 12-hour days for 2 weeks straight, and you're finally getting a 4-day weekend. Ask your players to think about "what does your character do when they're not being a badass adventurer?" What do they do for fun, what religious obligations do they have, who would they look to for info (the innkeeper, the gravedigger, the mayor, etc.)? How would they pass the time? Would they be doing training exercises (you can use this to teach new players tactics on the grid and how their powers work best), or studying in a library/temple/whatever? Would they go partying? How would they dance and why? What music would they listen to? Who would they meet during these activities? I ran a session like this with my players, taking into account their feedback on how they would want to spend some time off, weaving it together with the story points I needed/wanted to advance in the town (fleshing out new NPCs, taking existing ones in new directions, etc), and made a "day" if it that flowed from one scene to the next; it was actually my best-received session of the campaign so far (4e btw) even though there was no combat.
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May 13, 2013 06:36
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Skyrim has a wonderful mod called Frostfall that completely changes the way you view the outdoors, and makes things like icy rivers actually sort of terrifying. Getting that feel into 4e would help get what you're looking for. To achieve this, first cut back on recovery of healing surges (maybe con bonus + 3 per night?), and make a couple of disease tracks. One for actual disease and one for fatigue. Make it so being at the top gives minor bonuses, and tune it so it's not devastating to be moderately fatigued and tired, but have the very bottom be death. I'd also ditch xp (level up every few sessions when they've achieved some notable goal) and use inherent bonuses, as that skips two of 4e's key flaws.
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May 13, 2013 07:58
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sebmojo posted:I'd also ditch xp (level up every few sessions when they've achieved some notable goal) and use inherent bonuses, as that skips two of 4e's key flaws. I'm honestly surprised when I play with a 4e group that uses XP anymore. I just figured everyone agreed on "If you had to work late and miss the session, missing the session is the punishment, not making your Elf fall behind because the other Elves earned their powerups."
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May 13, 2013 08:23
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Razorwired posted:I'm honestly surprised when I play with a 4e group that uses XP anymore. I just figured everyone agreed on "If you had to work late and miss the session, missing the session is the punishment, not making your Elf fall behind because the other Elves earned their powerups." We played Rolemaster for years, which has the most Byzantine xp system imaginable. You get xp for every point of damage you take and deliver, each critical, each mile travelled, each skill used. Took about an hour to work it out, once every few sessions. One day we worked out that we invariably levelled each 4-5 sessions regardless of what happened in the game. Just like that, a little light bulb went off over our heads.
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May 13, 2013 13:12
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Yeah I only use CR, EPL and all that to very roughly plan out what level of challenges I can throw at the players so that it all adds up to a new level by the end. I say very roughly, though. As soon as I started to do number crunching with a calculator I began to re-consider my hobby.
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May 13, 2013 13:54
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If I don't need to open up excel to play a game, I don't want to play it.
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May 13, 2013 15:46
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Initio posted:If I don't need to open up excel to play a game, I don't want to play it. Different play styles, I guess. For me, the number-crunching actually prohibits creativity. But I can understand the appeal (calculating point values for Warhammer armies has it's charm).
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May 13, 2013 16:22
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sebmojo posted:Skyrim has a wonderful mod called Frostfall that completely changes the way you view the outdoors, and makes things like icy rivers actually sort of terrifying. Getting that feel into 4e would help get what you're looking for. This is really good actually; I've played frost fall and I rather like it. I do especially like how it makes the survival mechanics part of the game. Maybe work in something like a disease track as you suggest for environmental stuff; I'd have to tweak it a bit because it could just be grognardy bloat; or a fun way to have the environment itself be an encounter. Some skill checks and a "hypothermia" chart to follow could lead to some fun struggling against the environment. Cutting surges to three is pretty good, was that a random number? With the average surge value of classes being 7 it means that at minimum you need about two nights rest to be back up at full. 3+ con modifier+ feat or power modifiers + fatigue modifiers With fatigue modifiers being either a malus (hungry, tired, sick etc etc) or a bonus (hearty stew, rented a comfortable bed, had mulled wine, etc etc) It would encourage players to spend money and time on lifestyle stuff because it means they're walking around with as much healing as they can. And if I make combat a little deadlier it means that fights would naturally whittle away at fatigue- Too much or no? With regards given to experience I personally like it. Not for levelling up players, that's mostly arbitrary and every few sessions. but to help me budget out encounters quickly. I'm not sure about using inherent bonuses either. I like them but I also plan to be fairly liberal with magic loot.
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May 13, 2013 22:09
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Inherent bonuses don't do anything to loot -- you can be as liberal or as miserly as you like. If you give them a +1 flaming sword and they're already at +1 attack, they still get the fire damage as a bonus they didn't have before. Using inherent bonuses just ensures you don't have to make sure every character is up-to-date on every bonus-enhancing slot at all times.
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May 13, 2013 22:20
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So, I think I hate my players. Or maybe all players. Suffice it to say, I keep going to them for feedback about what they want to do in the campaign and about their characters' goals and stuff and I reliably get no responses. Now I've just had a few people drop out (leaving 4 in total), but I have a handful more who have expressed interest in joining. With that many new people, I figured it might be worth considering starting a new game instead of trying to indoctrinate all the newcomers into the campaign/setting, soooo... I asked the existing players what they wanted to do; half of them replied with a resounding "I'm good with whatever!  "So I started asking the new players what their preferences are; half of them responded, and gave the same answer as above  Should I take this as a hint that no one gives a gently caress and call the whole thing off? Or am I just being a big dumb baby?
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May 13, 2013 23:27
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Rocket Ace posted:Different play styles, I guess. For me, the number-crunching actually prohibits creativity. But I can understand the appeal (calculating point values for Warhammer armies has it's charm). I think he was joking  It's an interesting point though - there is a genuine pleasure in making all the numbers fit just so, but it's a pleasure that tends to belong to people with a lot of time to fill up. These days I want to get to the serious fun quicker, so I'm DMing games with minimal prep, using character builder, playing Dungeon World. Back to the fatigue/disease tracks, while complexity could easily get out of hand, I think it's got real potential. I'd introduce them one at a time, so fatigue first and disease once they've got that in hand. To prevent disease simply being nullified by the cure disease ritual without being a complete rear end in a top hat, you could make it so that ritual needs a particular rare (but obtainable) component. Or just let them cast the ritual, there's probably enough assholery to go around with these systems. Tangentially I once had a subplot around just that, where the party were hired to steal a bunch of this material in a plague-struck city so their employer could monopolise it and jack up the prices. Similarly with fatigue in a sandboxy setting, I can see players getting into fights to attain food/shelter which is kind of awesome. Spitballing what the fatigue track might look like, bonuses/penalties could accrue to, in descending order: Initiative, skills, damage, healing surges, to hit (to hit is arguable, since lowering that risks making the game really unfun - maybe just a -1 at the second lowest status point on the track?). Things that would raise it would be food, warm clothes, shelter, rest. Lowering it would be fights, lack of food, getting wet, lack of sleep. Maybe to keep it simple just give a +1 or a -1 to each, and add up at the end of each day? Having reread all those  , I'm wondering if a separate disease track is worth the hassle. Maybe just add it into the list of things that damage fatigue and let people cure it with a ritual, it's mainly for flavour.P.d0t posted:So, I think I hate my players. Or maybe all players. Nah, they just want you to do the thinking for them. Amp it up and start them in a burning city under siege, and get the connections on the fly, storygame style. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 13, 2013 |
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May 13, 2013 23:34
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P.d0t posted:Should I take this as a hint that no one gives a gently caress and call the whole thing off? Take that as your chance to run whatever the gently caress you want. Always wanted to run a pirate game? Players are all monsters defending their lair from nasty adventurers? Whatever, do it up. At worst they will start telling you what they want.
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May 13, 2013 23:36
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P.d0t posted:So, I think I hate my players. Or maybe all players. Try being less open ended. Your players just don't know how awesome making decisions is yet! Give them multiple choice questions at first. Don't ask 'What does your character want to do next?' but ask 'Does your character want to chase down Count Kevin, or go seek the Golden Widget, or something else?' Always include the 'or something else' and eventually your players will, hopefully, start thinking for themselves. An intermediate step is to start asking leading questions, like 'What did the Contessa do to you that makes you want to ruin her life?'
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May 13, 2013 23:42
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GOONSOURCE YOUR GAME Ok, so we've got pirates, in a burning city under siege, trying to get to their ship at the docks before the Emperor's flagship rounds the point or the city walls fall! Each character has a thing they need out of the city - what is it! Each character has one thing they love in the city! What is it! Who is Count Kevin? What or why is the Golden Widget??? Keep 'em coming fellas! (I would totally play this game)
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May 14, 2013 00:53
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God Of Paradise posted:So I took a vote. Should this PC be able to rape NPCs and kill PCs? I asked the 4 other players. 3 of them said they were fine with it. One of them said yes, but it was dumb. My girlfriend said it was dumb but that she didn't give a poo poo. I am the lone person opposed. What the gently caress? I am an adult, and all of the games that I run are adult themed, at least in the sense we're dealing with some pretty grown up emotions, moral ambiguity, antagonists you can empathize with, the banality of "evil," etc, and I would never allow this. I can't even think of a reason to allow it, other than some seriously amazing roleplaying justification where the character in question is making an exit, and even then I'd say no. While I believe what I do as a GM is collaborate with the players to create a meaningful world and compelling story, I have no interest in collaborating my game into an "edgy" rape fantasy sim for one of my players. End of story. I wouldn't have polled anyone. I would have just said: "No. Don't bring it up again." Then I would look at the particular player's justification for wanting to be a rapist, and unless I thought there was a good, but misguided desire to make a more "complete" character, I'd probably have told the person that they were no longer part of the game. Maybe I would poll my characters after I decided that the player in question didn't have a loving abhorrent reason to want to play a rapist, but not to see if the other players were comfortable letting it happen. Rather, I'd poll them to see if they were satisfied that the offending player meant well, and were thus comfortable continuing to play with him/her. In this poll it would just take 1 person saying that they were not comfortable continuing with the rapist player to get that person asked to leave. Killing PCs is another story altogether though. I would allow it in certain rare cases, where again there was a serious story justification for doing so, and just not because the player decided his character thinks Johnny's character is stealing from someone else's share of the loot. Even then I'd probably only allow it under one of two other conditions. 1. At the start of the campaign, for some reason, it was made clear that PC on PC murder might occur, and under what conditions I would find it appropriate or 2. The person whose character is the target for the PC murder attempt agrees to the "murderer's" reasoning behind his character's actions, and is willing to allow his character to potentially die for the sake of the story. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 01:42 on May 14, 2013 |
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May 14, 2013 01:34
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sebmojo posted:GOONSOURCE YOUR GAME Change "Golden Widget" to the eternally indescribable Sampo and I'm sold.
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May 14, 2013 01:39
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