|
Bad Munki posted:Do the new versions of the DMG not have those sweet treasure-generation tables that the 3.0 DMG had? It was a bit involved and thus not at all something to be done during the game itself, but I really liked those tables for generating random loot as part of a session's planning phase. AlternatePFG posted:Thanks for the advice, I agree that probably the way to go is just level everybody up when the time is right and just make it seem like I'm keeping track of XP. I have another question, as I'm going through designing my dungeon (Which is a lot of fun by the way) I'm kind of at a loss on how reward my players as far as loot and items go. There doesn't seem to be a good list of items in the books I have and the D&D compendium has an overwhelming amount of items. Since we're low level (Level 2) I don't want to make people too overpowered with made up items, but I don't want each encounter to be "You cleared the room of enemies/solved the puzzle, just move onto the next room" either.  So you can (should) be handing out one of these after each encounter, as normally takes 10 'at level' encounters to level up if you're tracking XP. If you undershoot and level up after 6-8, just chuck the extras in at the end (or feel free to shuffle them around as desired). For the actual magic items dropped... if you want you can ask your players for a wishlist and drop mostly what they've asked for. You can just drop things picked at random- but the players might just sell them (e.g. if nobody uses a greatsword, or they already have an axe with a better effects) which cuts their value dramatically. One way of handling it is to just drop gold, gems, artwork, etc. to give the players money enough to buy what they want, and just hand out whatever Wondrous Items you find interesting on top. Few people will actually bother to buy a Bag of Tricks or Decanter of Endless Water when it's competing for their money with a new +1 Sword, but they enjoy using them. Also, I wouldn't try and make like you're keeping track of XP when you really aren't, because then if somebody else actually does it they'll either get confused or start an argument.
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2013 21:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 04:04 |
|
|
There was a random treasure list released later, in Essentials. I can't cite it because I'm not at home.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2013 22:04
|
|
|
Talkie Toaster posted:The list is in 10 'parcels', for example: I'm pretty lazy and I usually hand out a bunch of loot at the end of an arc/when most of the party levels up and say "everyone take an item of ([max_parcel_level]+1) or lower" and just let them pick whatever they want. Or if they made up a wish list, I just pick a thing from there that they want and say they found it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 07:03
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:I'm pretty lazy and I usually hand out a bunch of loot at the end of an arc/when most of the party levels up and say "everyone take an item of ([max_parcel_level]+1) or lower" and just let them pick whatever they want. Or if they made up a wish list, I just pick a thing from there that they want and say they found it. I used to do that, but my party has D&D insider, so their selections turned out to be the most game-breaking item they could dig up. Plus the wizard would bogart any gold to buy his upgrades. They seem to like me passing out interesting things from AV&AV2 or me homebrewing up some stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 08:14
|
|
P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
|
Whoever takes the 30gp +100sp is a complete rear end. If you told me those item parcels were from the bowels of ODD I would have believed you. Those treasure charts don't seem extravagant compared to every other core D&D treasure tables. I have the packet from god knows when; are there guidelines for rewards yet?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 11:48
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:Whoever takes the 30gp +100sp is a complete rear end. If you told me those item parcels were from the bowels of ODD I would have believed you. Those treasure charts don't seem extravagant compared to every other core D&D treasure tables. What do you mean? There's nothing wrong with 130 coins. For reference, you hand out each of those parcels *once.* That 40gp parcel doesn't come at the cost of your 4th level magic item for this level or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 15:41
|
|
|
I've been having trouble finding out what exactly happens when enemies mark players in 4e. Does it apply the same -2 to attack versus other targets other than the marker like the Fighter's mark? Edit: This is probably the wrong thread to ask this so I'll ask for some advice too: I'm having trouble finding good traps to use during encounters to spice up the battlefield. Does anyone have any recommendations for that? There's very few traps in the DMG, especially for where my players are at (Level 2). Hell, encounter building for this level is rather difficult when following the DMG's template examples.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 19:30
|
|
|
JAssassin posted:I've been having trouble finding out what exactly happens when enemies mark players in 4e. Does it apply the same -2 to attack versus other targets other than the marker like the Fighter's mark? That's correct. Marking is a condition, and always applies that effect. Mark punishments - what you do when the enemy doesn't attack you when you have it marked - are unique according to class, and only some monsters might have them. As for traps, not every "spice" on the battlefield needs to be an actual trap. One good thing to think about is forced movement - both monsters and PCs have a ton of ways to move each other places, and every encounter should have some place interesting to move people into or out of. A cliff works - if someone's pushed over it, they take a good amount of damage and have to climb up on their next turn. An encounter can also be more interesting just because of terrain - a fight where the PCs are trapped in the middle of a ditch with orcs raining arrows down on them from both sides is really different from a fight where the players are fighting down a set of giant stairs against an onrushing horde. You're right that the encounter templates in the DMG are pretty hard to deal with at 1st level, but don't feel that you need to stick to them: as long as you stay within your overall budget for the encounter and don't have anything super-high level in relation to the PCs, you're fine. But for an example of how it generally works out, this is a level 1 wolf pack template that I ran in pbp and I think it worked out pretty well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 19:43
|
|
|
JAssassin posted:I've been having trouble finding out what exactly happens when enemies mark players in 4e. Does it apply the same -2 to attack versus other targets other than the marker like the Fighter's mark? What are you you trying to accomplish with your traps? Non-combat challenges for the players? Battlefield hazards? Dungeon Seasoning?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 19:55
|
|
|
JAssassin posted:Edit: This is probably the wrong thread to ask this so I'll ask for some advice too: I'm having trouble finding good traps to use during encounters to spice up the battlefield. Does anyone have any recommendations for that? There's very few traps in the DMG, especially for where my players are at (Level 2). Hell, encounter building for this level is rather difficult when following the DMG's template examples. Not a trap per say. But my group had a lot of fun in an encounter I built based off of "The Masque of the Red Death." I split the chamber into zones and gave each one an up and a downside: Blue - -1 defenses, cannot shift, make an immediate saving throw when hit by something with an ongoing effect. Purple - Vulnerable 1d4+1, deal your vulnerability value as extra damage on a hit. Green - Upon entering or starting your turn in the zone it makes an attack vs your Will. On a hit the zone slides you 3 and immobilizes you until the end of your turn. As long as you're in this zone you have cover. Orange - Take 5 Fire damage whenever you declare an attack, you may attack one additional target while in this zone. It must be within normal range of the attack. If using an area attack the secondary target must be adjacent to the initial area. White - Weakened - When you deal damage with an attack a ally within 10 squares may gain temporary hit points equal to the damage. Black/Scarlet - 1d10 Necrotic damage upon entering the zone or ending your turn there(1/round). You may spend a healing surge to regain the use of an Encounter power.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 20:13
|
|
|
Guesticles posted:What are you you trying to accomplish with your traps? Non-combat challenges for the players? Battlefield hazards? Dungeon Seasoning? A little bit of each, but mostly to fill in space between combat encounters. I'm not very good at coming up with riddles or anything like that, and I want dungeons to be something besides, Encounter 1 in room A, Encounter 2 in room B. This is the first dungeon I'm designing myself, and I'm struggling to make it interesting. quote:Not a trap per say. But my group had a lot of fun in an encounter I built based off of "The Masque of the Red Death." I split the chamber into zones and gave each one an up and a downside: Oh, that's a really good idea. I think I'm gonna keep that in mind for later on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2013 20:23
|
|
|
I need advice on a situation. In the Scion game, I'm running, one of my player's characters seems pretty hellbent on killing off another player's character. I'm not really sure how to handle it. I don't want to railroad too much, but at the same time, arguing over whether to kill this character or not (between the two characters concerned along with the rest of the party) took an hour of the last session. Specifics: -Target character is very low intelligence and has repeatedly earned the ire of some mid-level dieties. He's also has one one of the best combat builds (mostly due to being the offspring of a war god) and best financial background. He's got a super dodge ability so any combat between them would more or less take forever. He doesn't really want to kill her, though. -Wrathful character is actually the daughter of a very ragey, vengeful Aztec god, so it's fairly unlikely her dad would be like 'Yo, chill out, you might not want to kill this dude' so that's not a usable plot device. If anything her dad would want him as a blood sacrifice. -If he dies they'd likely be using his soul for something so getting him back from the underworld isn't an option. -The rest of the party (4 people, so 6 total players) is pretty split on what to do with him. They took a vote last game, and it didn't really do much. -Both players are in isolated holding cells in a jail right now recovering from explosive diarrhea, the result of one very annoyed player calling the cops and another really annoyed player using a non-conventional heal/infect. Ideas on how to handle this?
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2013 17:46
|
|
|
Arkham Angel posted:I need advice on a situation. "Stop trying to kill PCs ya dingus! You need the player's permission to do that, and you don't have it." They can figure out their own in-character reasons, that's not really your problem.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2013 18:36
|
|
|
I recently picked up four books that came out recently because I have a few pots on the stove that I'd like to start cooking with. The first three of the books were nominated for an ENnie for some categories if that means anything, but they all have their merits by themselves, nominations or not. Each of them may be useful to GMs here of any skill level!
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2013 23:34
|
|
|
Arkham Angel posted:I need advice on a situation. Away from the table, talk to the murderous player, and find out why they're trying to kill the other player's character. If you think they've really got a point or it will make the game more fun for everyone, talk to the other player and see if he's ok with his character getting murdered. Otherwise suggest the murderous player drop their line of roleplay, and possibly lay down the law as GM 'you are not murdering other players without permission in my game'. If they want an ingame reason, put both of them against a mutual enemy they need to work together to defeat. JAssassin posted:A little bit of each, but mostly to fill in space between combat encounters. I'm not very good at coming up with riddles or anything like that, and I want dungeons to be something besides, Encounter 1 in room A, Encounter 2 in room B. This is the first dungeon I'm designing myself, and I'm struggling to make it interesting. Give this a try for trap ideas http://chaoticshiny.com/trapgen.php its not 4e friendly, but it might fire your imagination. I used it on my bank vaults to help come up with ideas.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2013 03:09
|
|
|
aldantefax posted:I recently picked up four books that came out recently because I have a few pots on the stove that I'd like to start cooking with. The first three of the books were nominated for an ENnie for some categories if that means anything, but they all have their merits by themselves, nominations or not. Each of them may be useful to GMs here of any skill level! Hey thanks for these, I'm starting my first campaign as a GM tomorrow, it's going to be a 13th Age campaign. Anyone have tips for my first session?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2013 07:20
|
|
|
TG-Chrono posted:Hey thanks for these, I'm starting my first campaign as a GM tomorrow, it's going to be a 13th Age campaign. Anyone have tips for my first session? I like to run first sessions as a calibration session. Use it primarily to get familiar with the players, their characters, the game rules, and take notes of where you're not too sure on stuff so that you can improve for the next time (hopefully there is a next time). Running a game for the first time, even if you've played in a game for many years, can throw you for a loop, so accept that part and if you're interested enough to stick with it then I'd highly recommend looking at Never Unprepared. The other book, Odyssey is not as concise, but still pretty useful since it offers multiple perspectives on campaign management. To reiterate, it's an important thing is to identify the parts that you have problems with during the session; using prep time to get special rules and combat blocks and whatever you find you were lacking during the session. Try to keep things moving - act like a DJ and try to minimize dead air.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2013 07:37
|
|
|
Arkham Angel posted:I need advice on a situation. I had a similar situation come up recently and yeah, we handled it away from the table. Well okay it was physically at the table but nobody had their character sheets in front of them and we weren't talking about orcs. Basically the conversation has to start with, 'we're all friends here, and if you kill this guy's character, he's going to walk away from the table. If he walks away from the table, I'm going to stop running the game. So let's hash out a way for you two to reconcile IC.' If either or both players refuse to have their characters grow or alter the fiction because that's not what their precious characters would do than you have to make a choice. Let things play out and try to handle the fallout; or you can ban the troublemaker from the table ASAP before he causes chaos to break out. Dealing with hurt feelings and game disintegration because one player has got it into his skull that his character has to kill another character is weak. Even in a grindy, gristmill D&D style game I'd be loath to have characters randomly PvP each other. Deal with the OOC discussion first. That's my big piece of advice. If you try to deal with it entirely through IC direction and fiction, then the murdery guy will find a way to kill your other party member no matter what you do. There is always an excuse. Don't use the fiction to try to find a cure for jerks because you won't find one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 16:20
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:Even in a grindy, gristmill D&D style game I'd be loath to have characters randomly PvP each other. This right here. Killing off the party is the domain of the GM, not of other party members. With very few exceptions, I don't care if my players are a party of completely amoral murderhobos, they are murderhobos on the same team and there is no PvP without both players agreeing to it. About the only exception to this I can think of is if one of the PC's was a secret traitor - and that's still really the GM doing it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 17:18
|
|
|
I had a dude who basically engineered through his own choices a situation where he believed he HAD to kill a PC due to honour or something. No one else agreed it was even in-character for him and everyone was annoyed. It resulted in about an hour discussion and break from the game and finally the guy saying he HAD to do it otherwise he'd be a bad roll-player or something. So of course he tries to kill the guy and everyone else kills him to stop him, which is the outcome he knew would happen. Then he got all mopey that his character died and acted like he was forced into the situation. And it was like the 2nd time he put him self into a situation like that. There is though as a GM and a player-group a very easy solution to such problems: Don't invite him next time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 17:29
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I had a dude who basically engineered through his own choices a situation where he believed he HAD to kill a PC due to honour or something. No one else agreed it was even in-character for him and everyone was annoyed. It resulted in about an hour discussion and break from the game and finally the guy saying he HAD to do it otherwise he'd be a bad roll-player or something. So of course he tries to kill the guy and everyone else kills him to stop him, which is the outcome he knew would happen. Then he got all mopey that his character died and acted like he was forced into the situation. And it was like the 2nd time he put him self into a situation like that. "My character had to do it" is like some kind of holy warning sign of having a poo poo player. Characters don't have to do things. They are characters. They have traits and tendencies, sure. If I make a character who is always on about honor he's going to freak out if somebody insults him. The thing is that characters do things when it's dramatically appropriate, they grow, they learn, and they respond in proportion to threats issued. If a long standing friend and ally insults my character's honor, we can maybe have a fight, we can yell at each other, we can resolve our differences with fisticuffs, but acting like there is only one logical, in-character response to a given stimulus has got to be some sort of record for going from zero to sperg in under six seconds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 17:36
|
|
|
The 4e game I have been running (big table of 8 and we meet once a week) had a development that caught me off guard even though I should have expected it. The leader of the group is a Good Dragonborn Knight that worships Bahamut and is trying to earn back honor after disgracing himself in the past (summary of the background he wrote). Through a ridiculous series of events and hilariously good roleplay he managed to acquire some amulets with the symbol of Tiamat from an evil dragonborn priest while the group was visiting a black market using diplomacy. They detected as powerful evil magic items (for effect I had the good sorceress that was trying to identify them suffer 20 fire damage). Instead of finding a way to destroy them to please Bahamut as I expected, he thought for a long moment and then decided to put all six amulets on before the next battle and said his character couldn't resist the temptation to backslide. Additionally, after putting on the amulets, he said that he wanted to eat the flesh of a lightning demon they killed last session (this group picks up, butchers, and saves everything from non-humanoid monsters). Our session ended shortly after so I didn't have to make anything up on the spot. So what are some cool ways this type of thing could change his character?
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 23:34
|
|
|
The first thing that pops to mind would be changing his breath weapon damage type to lightning or necrotic, depending on how corrupt-y you want it to be. Other than that the 4E Book of Vile Darkness might have a paragon path or some feats that might suit? Edit: Multiclass blackguard feats might suit well, actually. UrbanLabyrinth fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jul 30, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 00:16
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I had a dude who basically engineered through his own choices a situation where he believed he HAD to kill a PC due to honour or something. No one else agreed it was even in-character for him and everyone was annoyed. It resulted in about an hour discussion and break from the game and finally the guy saying he HAD to do it otherwise he'd be a bad roll-player or something. So of course he tries to kill the guy and everyone else kills him to stop him, which is the outcome he knew would happen. Then he got all mopey that his character died and acted like he was forced into the situation. And it was like the 2nd time he put him self into a situation like that. I'd like to clarify that both players/characters are problematic for different reasons. The one dude keeps doing really stupid poo poo and basically pissing of deities (and other players) left and right. And then other player is problematic because obvious reasons. I don't think I've ever seen that much hostility between PCs ever-and I've played in an exalted game with an Abyssal PC in a hoarde of solars/lunars.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 04:16
|
|
|
Yeahhh.. here's the thing. And everyone will disagree with me, but if a Character is being a dick, it makes sense for other Characters or Deities or whatever to get pissed off at them. You keep pushing people and sooner or later they're going to push back. Make it clear that in-character bullshit has in-character consequences, and point to the things they did to cause them when they do happen. But really it sounds like you just have lovely players; tell them to curb their behaviour or hit the road. Or just tell them to hit the road.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 04:26
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Yeahhh.. here's the thing. And everyone will disagree with me, but if a Character is being a dick, it makes sense for other Characters or Deities or whatever to get pissed off at them. You keep pushing people and sooner or later they're going to push back. Make it clear that in-character bullshit has in-character consequences, and point to the things they did to cause them when they do happen. Most of my group is new players, so it MIGHT be inexperience. I suppose I'll have to tell both to improve their behavior or leave.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 04:32
|
|
|
Arkham Angel posted:Most of my group is new players, so it MIGHT be inexperience. I suppose I'll have to tell both to improve their behavior or leave. The other thing is, did you give clear guidelines about your behaviour expectations of the players? That's a thing that should happen before the start of any campaign. Luckily it's never too late to sit everyone down and hammer that kind of thing out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 04:38
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:The other thing is, did you give clear guidelines about your behaviour expectations of the players? I honestly didn't think to, because 1) this is my first time running a game solo and 2) I've never played in a game where the GM did this, and none of the 3 games I've played before this had any player issues whatsoever, so it didn't occur to me to address it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 04:52
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Yeahhh.. here's the thing. And everyone will disagree with me, but if a Character is being a dick, it makes sense for other Characters or Deities or whatever to get pissed off at them. You keep pushing people and sooner or later they're going to push back. Make it clear that in-character bullshit has in-character consequences, and point to the things they did to cause them when they do happen. I don't think everyone's going to completely disagree with you. Of course if a character is doing stupid things and annoying deities, bad stuff's going to happen to them. Sometimes that's even what the player wants to happen. Sometimes it can be fun! If it goes over the line into annoying other players or the GM (most likely because that stupidity is stopping other people from doing what they want to do), though, it's become an OOC problem and needs a primarily OOC solution. IC consequences are unlikely to cut it, because either the player is looking for those consequences in the first place, they don't care about them at all, or they have a completely different expectation of how things will go from yours. In the latter case, they're likely to feel betrayed if you spring consequences on them without warning them and giving them a chance to rethink their action. Basically, saying that people aren't having fun dealing with his character is about the best you can do. Let people hash out what they want from the campaign, give him a chance to rethink how his character acts or make a new one, but if he doesn't accept that other people's fun is also important, there's not much point playing with him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 11:03
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Yeahhh.. here's the thing. And everyone will disagree with me, but if a Character is being a dick, it makes sense for other Characters or Deities or whatever to get pissed off at them. You keep pushing people and sooner or later they're going to push back. Make it clear that in-character bullshit has in-character consequences, and point to the things they did to cause them when they do happen. I'll be brave and disagree. There is no in-character bullshit that is not player-created bullshit, and if it's pissing everyone off, in-game solutions are passive-aggressive, usually less effective, and always less grown-up than talking to the person and asking him or her to stop it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 14:17
|
|
|
Yeah I don't actually disagree with the notion of 'characters do stupid things therefore consequences!' That's fine. Consequences are the results of actions. Without consequences the whole experience is sort of hollow. So if a player lights a match, he starts a little fire. If he drops the match on a pile of oily rags he starts a big fire. That's normal. It's normal for a character to make enemies out of your NPCs when he shits in their toast and it's normal for him to piss off other PC's for much the same reason. The issue is that there is a line between 'what is dramatic and fun' and 'I'm doing this because my enjoyment is bound up in pushing as many buttons as possible.' The latter is valid, I wouldn't tell a person how to have fun, but it's bound to reduce everyone else's enjoyment of the game. Including yours. If actions step over the line from 'it would be dramatic for my character to pants your character' into, 'I have to be a dick all the loving time because it's what my character would do' it's time to trick that player into leaving your house and then locking the door behind them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 14:44
|
|
|
Thanks for the input, everyone. I think I'll have a talk with everyone the start of next session regarding expectations (we usually take some time to eat before actually playing so I'll do it over dinner). Namely, PCs need to bring something to the table and not be total PITAs for the rest of the group, and player versus player arguments should take up a minimal amount of game time. And of course, explain to problem dude that playing a low intelligence character doesn't excuse him for complete idiot behavior all the time, especially when there's another character with the same intelligence NOT pulling this bullshit. I know it's definitely making it not fun and really frustrating for most of the other players, excluding maybe my husband who has an unhealthy obsession with absolute free will of the player (in both video and tabletop gaming).
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 15:07
|
|
|
homullus posted:I'll be brave and disagree. There is no in-character bullshit that is not player-created bullshit, and if it's pissing everyone off, in-game solutions are passive-aggressive, usually less effective, and always less grown-up than talking to the person and asking him or her to stop it. I don't disagree with you, but the way I explained it to my players is basically, "If your characters do terrible things to other characters, other characters will do terrible things back to your character." To me this seems like common sense. I guess the argument is over whether it is a worse sin to be "passive-aggressive" and make the character reap what they sow, or if it is worse to work from the assumption that the players know that'll be the case. Yes, the impetus is always on the player to not pilot their character like a horse' rear end. I mean, I get that we're talking about ~*fantasy*~ but that doesn't mean NPCs are all a bunch of doormats; they should have plausible real-life reactions to someone giving them poo poo. I'm not saying, "don't bother explaining to the player that their character's behaviour is likely to get them killed"; this discussion keeps coming up because players make very lovely assumptions about how they can/should behave. I guess I'm just frustrated that people even need that sort of instruction. That's the crux of it, I think; people detach themselves from their characters and depersonalize (made up word?) their actions. If YOU punch somebody for any reason, they're probably gonna punch you back; if your character does the same thing, expect the same reaction. This should make basic logicial sense to any fully-functioning adult human (so I don't understand the need for all the hand-holding) but here we are, so.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 18:02
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:I don't disagree with you, but the way I explained it to my players is basically, "If your characters do terrible things to other characters, other characters will do terrible things back to your character." To me this seems like common sense. I guess the argument is over whether it is a worse sin to be "passive-aggressive" and make the character reap what they sow, or if it is worse to work from the assumption that the players know that'll be the case. I think it should be obvious that the issue isn't with cause/effect though it's with one guy being a dick so much so that the world is or has to constantly react by punching back. The world should respond appropriately to a character's bullshit; in fact, most PC's want the world to respond that way. When I'm playing in a game I don't off and deck a dude in the teeth if I don't want that guy to respond to me. That's literally why I'm doing it. There is a point where a character is such a dick and has decked so many guys in the teeth that the entire game is about setting up a cascade of responses to that character. Nobody wants to play in that game. I don't want to go along for a roller-coaster tour through some other player's horseplay. There is such a thing as a reasonable amount of interplay. The problem isn't a lack of realistic consequences, the problem is a player wanting those consequences so bad that nobody else gets to do anything, ever, except respond to that player. Which just makes the problem even worse.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 18:23
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:There is a point where a character is such a dick and has decked so many guys in the teeth that the entire game is about setting up a cascade of responses to that character. Nobody wants to play in that game. I don't want to go along for a roller-coaster tour through some other player's horseplay. There is such a thing as a reasonable amount of interplay. The problem isn't a lack of realistic consequences, the problem is a player wanting those consequences so bad that nobody else gets to do anything, ever, except respond to that player. Which just makes the problem even worse. Here's the thing though; obviously, the problem player "wants to play in that game" which just makes me go  "Who the gently caress thinks like that and why are they so brain-damaged?"Like, I've read enough horror stories in this thread to understand that these people do exist; my question is why, god, why? Which I guess is more of an e/n question than a DM advice thread thing.. But seriously, what is wrong with people?
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 18:41
|
|
|
So it's been a while since I've checked this thread, but that's mostly because I think my game has been going well. It was rough at first hitting a stride for getting everyone's role to feel meaningful in the world, but everything's fleshed out enough that it's become pretty organic. This is all gonna be a lot of words about how it's gone so far (level 1 to 7). XP is for scrubs. I just tell them when they level up (about once every 1-2 sessions) and they're happy with it. They enjoy having new things to zap dudes with and honestly are getting a ton of use out of utility powers. 4e is working pretty well for me. I can focus most of my time on developing my world/story, and then if I know I have an encounter coming up I can spend 10 minutes before the session pulling some monsters of the appropriate type, maybe tacking on/modifying some of their abilities for flavor, and then rolling with it. If they unexpectedly fight something (they don't really, they're not about the aggression) then I can ask them to give me 5 and I'll have at least a passable fight for them. Since we're not running a super combat heavy campaign, though, I'm starting to see how heavily the combat system relies on series of encounters in the surges/daily powers etc. I've responded in kind by having the 1-2 encounters they do have be jacked up in difficulty so they end up spending most of their powers, and healing surges have been kind of the elephant behind my screen so far. I'll figure something out for them. On that note, I use the monster vault all the time, but I almost always reskin the monsters for something more interesting. I think kobolds and goblins and stuff are kind of boring, and sometimes I need human opponents who aren't level 2 or whatever. I find myself making up the majority of abilities and stats on major enemies now that I'm familiar with the business card approach, but it's great to steal 85% of the smaller fries. I'm also more or less making up the magic items myself unless they're shopping in town. I've learned after many weeks that this group isn't particularly concerned with having a super serious thing going on. We have a lot of silly names/places and honestly they were the driving force for that. I come up with names on the spot now and they're generally nonsense, and it helps me play into making encounters because I don't have to worry about their feasibility. For example, and if the one goon I have in my group finds this STOP READING YOU JERK: We talked about owlbears when we started because I think they're hilarious. Now that they're 7th level I've had them come accross a den of undead owlbears (with a screaming undead deer sentry that creeped them out until they finally walked up and killed it). They've killed a couple of them outside and are about to go in. It won't be a long dungeon since we don't do terribly long dungeons, and most of it will be full of various undead experiments since the tipoff was missing farm animals. The person driving all of this, however, is going to be an undead necromancer owlbear who's still kind of learning the ropes of being able to use magic. He's going to have a cape.  Lastly I had an little location that went well and wanted to talk about it. The players knew they had to get to some guy at the top of a library, and they are wanted in this town. The guy knows they're coming for him, and there are guards all over the place. I give them two ways in and they start out undetected. They sneak around doing various stealth/insight type checks and then when they need to take out a guard, they tell me what they do and I ask a roll. Usually they tried to stealth up and knock em out, but when that failed I'd ask for a further check and dock them surges as they got in a scuffle before they put him under. Sometimes they'd have to coordinate charging people or make a snap decision when a guy walks into the room. Occasionally they had to negotiate with scared scholars or sneak through a bunch of bird cages to trail a guard for the silent takedown. After all of this (mainly designed to see if I could drain their surges, would have worked in a longer dungeon perfectly), they get to the guy's room. The entire encounter of about 25 guards took maybe 45 minutes and they said they had a blast with it. Guy himself annoyed the poo poo out of them (but in a good way). He waited in the room, and once they came in and made a move I had him shift all the bookcases into a maze (they rolled reflex to not get slammed in the face) and split up. I told them only what they saw and had them (and the bad dude) move at half speed since they were disoriented. They inched their way through the maze while he chased them using a summoned eyeball in the sky and did hit and run spellcasting/dagger throwing. Once they though they had figured it out and mapped it down, when they were slightly split up I had the guy change the configuration of the maze on them. I let them know they were in the same relative places but the walls had shifted. They found each other and him again shortly and I had him dispel the maze when he got to 3/4 hp so they could properly fight him. I liked that combination of non-tedious minions into the boss. I'll probably do something similar soon since it was really fun to have them just describe what they did as they ran through an environement instead of wait for them to roll and see if their sword hit again.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 19:32
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Here's the thing though; obviously, the problem player "wants to play in that game" which just makes me go 90% of the time it's the lovely nerd-fallacy about never ostracizing weirdos out of some sort of stupid NERD SOLIDARITY idea, that and a lack of taste in friends. Don't associate with weird annoying terrible people and suddenly life goes way smoother. There's some weird loving people out there with broken brains and no social skills. People who are basically unable to measure if their actions are socially acceptable or not due to a lack of socialization or mental illness. The "nerd community" seems to have a large representation of these sorts of people. But why do they think it's a good idea do throw such horrible drama-bombs into games or ruin the pace of a session with their bullshit? Well, they don't think of other people. Not out of jerky selfishness but because they were never taught this skill, or can't develop it due to their malformed brains. A normal person would think they are a horrible rear end in a top hat as it's obvious their stupid PvP derail or in-game drama is bringing the whole game to a haul and moving it in a direction no one wants to go, but for them it's a single-player game, they haven't thought it through. The other part is that for some fairly sad people, D&D or other games is a way to escape their lovely lives and they end up over-investing and over-immersing them selves in their characters and the game. These people often play characters that always "have" to seek revenge and always "have" to restore honour because these are things they can not do in real life. With these types of people I notice a few consistent types of derails: -The Wacky derail Their character just HAS to do some stupid wacky thing that might seem funny to them but is uninteresting or downright disruptive to the rest of the players. It's attention-seeking behavior as it makes them the center of a lot of (negative) attention. Worse still, their actions are often inspired by what ever lovely anime, comic, or tv series they love. The "wacky" character they are imitating is hilarious in their favourite anime so surely everyone will enjoy their antics! Not only is it about attention, but it's often about fulfilling their own fantasies of bucking social or legal normals without real consequence. -The Honour derail Their character just HAS to kill someone no one else wants to kill and in fact would be extremely detrimental to the game if they did. A key NPC, an innocent, or even another player. Due to the player's lack of social skills combined with a lack of understanding "honour" and compounded with a total lack of role playing skills, they think minor slights against their character MUST be met with violence. It's always something stupid like finding out that +3 ring you bought was actually only a +2 ring and then demanding the party travel back to town and KILL the merchant who sold it. Minor disputes between players often result in the DEMAND FOR HONOUR that can result in character-death, players quitting, and the whole drat game flying off the tracks. Players who do this are fulfilling revenge and power fantasies that they can't in real life. Imagine if I could draw my katana and cut that dude who said vintage Ranma 1/2 t-shirt was gross and ill-fitting in half! -The "Adult" derail Their character just HAS to do some gross "adult" thing no one at the table wants to loving hear about and they are not willing for it to just be abstracted away by a grossed out DM who just wants to move along. No, they have a plan and they demand rolls be made and for their character to officially do what ever gross poo poo they wanted. At the best its the player who constantly wants to roll to "seduce the wench" and at worst it gets into super creepy rape fantasies or even other PC's. Players who do this poo poo are generally sexually frustrated nerds who want to turn D&D into not only a single-player adventure about their social and violent fantasies but sexual ones as well. After enough years playing and running stupid nerd games I've developed extremely low tolerances for any of this sort of poo poo. If a player won't be gently steered towards not doing this sort of poo poo, kick them out of the game. They might learn that their awful social skills actually have consequences, and you learn how prune your social life of gross nerds and thus become a better person your self.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 21:25
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:-The Honour derail
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2013 00:24
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:I did something like that recently. We were in Undermountain, and some guy walked up who was alone on the 3 level, and looked like a wizard. Fantasy Vietnam took over so I jumped him without a word. It turns out he was some Ed Greenwood self-insert who had 30 levels in every class, so it was probably a good call. Is being extremely paranoid a disruptive player type? It was a dungeon crawl not a city adventure so I feel justified. When it comes to these things I'm glad I do a Session 0 with my groups. Not only do you get a good mix of characters. But you can also have conversation on if your table wants to explore, murderhobo, or be a royal court. It also gives you a chance to set "Okay, we're doing a Drow Treachery game. Is everyone on board? Okay, nobody backstab Beth's Rogue. Beth, if you abuse that they can backstab you." I won't claim that it works all the time. But when a problematic player reveals himself it gives you something to reference when addressing his behavior. There are other things(only letting certain people play Neutral or Evil characters comes to mind) that make me really enjoy making the first meeting mostly about rolling and setting up the party.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2013 00:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 04:04 |
|
|
Razorwired posted:When it comes to these things I'm glad I do a Session 0 with my groups. Not only do you get a good mix of characters. But you can also have conversation on if your table wants to explore, murderhobo, or be a royal court. It also gives you a chance to set "Okay, we're doing a Drow Treachery game. Is everyone on board? Okay, nobody backstab Beth's Rogue. Beth, if you abuse that they can backstab you." This guy has a good idea. You can't always get that session 0 in some situations: friend is visiting, turns out to be a shitlord; con game (please don't try to do this if you're really new); social obligation (brother of the host, creepy significant other that insists on joining (see: BEES)); location. This is probably me parroting poo poo from the books I referenced in a previous post but if you have any intention of a campaign you want to take the long view and make sure all your players on the same page. The primary derail issues that Baronjutter had brought up could be mitigated by setting a ground floor ("social contract" if you want to get fancy, though that can have connotations that people may find distasteful). A few examples below: Wacky derail: presenting a campaign premise that has everybody on the same page and keeps motivations on the level. If you want to try and negotiate, find out what the player is really trying to do and throw them a bone and move on quickly while they're chewing. Honour-with-a-u derail: They are still bound by whatever rules you have. Usually through some discussions you can see this coming by talking about theoretical situations in session 0. Again, if you want to negotiate, you can give them something that's akin to a plot-hook: The ring has a hidden benefit or an inscription that says the merchant is a travelling wizard. Attempting to kill an NPC that's important because of a reason they've cooked up in their head can be mitigated by a variety of deterrents beyond their control, or a more pressing matter to keep them engaged. Keep in mind that even though the player's disposition is such, they still do want to play. If the party is in the middle of Mordor and this guy wants to go back to the Shire, that's fine - he can also hand over his character sheet and we'll come back to him when the rest of the party gets back to the Shire, too. The Adult derail: This is a touchy topic and I can't blame anybody if they want to leave it out, but it should be important especially with people the group hasn't known for a long period of time or isn't super comfortable with from the start. This doesn't even have to be creepy sex fantasies: it can be any sensitive material, particularly in horror-themed games. Talking this type of thing through in the beginning helps to mitigate some of that. If the player's really insistent on having graphic sex or describing in graphic detail what he's doing with that other dude's guts, I'd refer them back to what was agreed upon - they should have the presence of mind to cut it out and move on. With pushback from them, in those kinds of scenarios it's usually best to cut them loose pretty much immediately, since enabling them in a game you're running has a good chance of making things worse in the long run. I agree with the sentiment for low tolerances for these player types, but other people may be in a position where everybody wants to play and this dude is a lynchpin, which is kind of the worst situation to have, since their leaving means you don't have enough players or several key plot points collapse. It's a tradeoff for GMs - do you let the behavior continue, or do you stop it right away?
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2013 03:28
|
|