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Wassup y'all! Just gonna post my setting for shits and giggles. Let me know what you think: You are a prisoner. You hosed up somehow, you defied The Family's rules and now you are stuck on Iria 12 a.k.a Prison Planet. The various factions that have sprung up on the planet vie for dominance. Will you join La Rage and find a way to destroy your technologically superior captors? Or will you join a Family Friendly faction, whose aim is to redeem themselves in the eyes of The Family and earn a trip back to Paradise? Or will you forge your own path ahead and join one of the many independent factions? There are many mysteries surrounding the planet. Who inhabited the planet beforehand and why are some people who claim to have "spoken" with the beings emerging with strange powers? Why are Watchdogs, The Family's oldest and most favoured race under their protection, suddenly appearing on the planet setting up trading posts and alien bazaars? Who are the Ones Who Dwell Below? Did you just get shivers up your spine? Yeah, me too.
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Jul 31, 2013 06:19
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I like it, but it needs more flesh if I was going to play it - some more info about conditions on the planet, and 'what everyone knows' about the factions. As an elevator pitch, it works great, though!
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Aug 1, 2013 00:32
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I feel like this two paragraph summary would be better served by taking a little emphasis off the factions. "There are guys who want X and guys who want Y and all sorts of guys who want other things!" is kinda not particularly informative. If the fact that everyone's taking sides is vital to the setting, then maybe play up a sort of cold war tension? But of all the bits that would catch my interest, "strange, potentially world-changing events are starting to happen on a planet-wide prison" seems more compelling than the rest. e: Also, "forge your own path (by joining an existing group)" is a phrase that bugs me every time I see it, but that's more of a personal taste sort of thing.
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Aug 1, 2013 09:50
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I'm building a one-shot adventure, putting in a twist, and am wondering if anyone here has tried doing something like this before. Background: My group is taking a break from the main campaign for the summer due to erratic schedules. Since its sometimes a month between sessions, rather than spend the first half hour having everyone remember what the hell is going on, we've been trying other systems until things get less crazy in the fall. To get everyone geared back up for the main campaign and put everyone back into a 4e mindset, I'm going to run a one-shot 4e campaign towards the end of August. But I also want to add a little twist. The Twist: The one shot will have the party playing level 2 characters, but I decided I was going to give the characters a Level 3 encounter power to make combat a little more interesting. Then I thought, especially since the main campaign is about to hit paragon tier, it might be fun to give their level 2 characters access to a paragon power or two. I figure if its something that does damage I'll need to adjust that, but I'm wondering if anyone else has tried something similar. (I'm generating the characters, so I'm not concerned about anyone trying to build a horribly broken murder machine.)
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Aug 1, 2013 18:31
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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I don't really have a direct need for advice, but it's more of a few general things. I've never had a game that didn't self-destruct in a few sessions for various reasons, and now that I have a game that's become much longer, I'm worried about making missteps and derailing things. Even a little generic advice on things I'm having trouble with would help me a lot. I'm running an Exalted game that's somewhere between 2E and 2.5E, but the players and I have an understanding mechanics wise (No one be stupid, I won't have to be stupid), and the group is one that's good enough about stuff like that that I can trust them to use Exalted's system because they have the perfect mix of knowledge and an enjoyment of RPing and a good story rather then munchkining to victory, so I'm not really looking for mechanic stuff, but I am looking for interesting ideas on how to end Stories. I generally like big fights for them, but I also know that doing that over and over again just results in boring repetition. Does anyone have any advice on how to end stories in ways that aren't quite just 'Okay you've done everything now fight the current big bad guy and get your XP'? I figure there's some interesting ways to finish things with Social abilities, but Social Combat's kind of a mess that is hard to understand and finishing a Story with a single roll is anti-climatic. Does anyone have any advice on how to work using Social skills into an interesting finish instead of 'Stunt, Roll, beat Difficulty, you win'? I had been considering a multiple rolls with a set number of Threshold successes to get, does anyone have any possibly interesting ideas they've used? In the same vein, does anyone have any advice on making NPCs feel like actual people, rather then just things to be interacted with? I feel this is one of my weak points as a ST, and I don't want to end up where I just randomly add depth to people they killed to try and make the players feel back because I feel like that is kind of what a bad ST would do- randomly slapping character depth onto people who first acted generically evil in order to make the PCs feel bad-, but I also don't want to make the world some kind of Happy Feel Good Land where everyone wants the best for everyone and all problems are solved by going 'But if you do that someone would feel bad' and the antagonist going 'Oh I never thought about that I guess you're right.' So does anyone have an idea of how to add depth without going to either extreme? I guess a better question is does every NPC even need that much depth? I don't want to make the game about the NPCs, but I want them to have characteristics the PCs can interact with them and not feel like they're talking to boards, and make it so even when the PCs have idelogical differences with the NPCs, it's generally not a 'well of course they're evil, they want to blow up all of Creation' or whatever, and more a 'They believe this is the way to a better world, and we believe this other way, and neither person is going to back down', but I feel like I still need a little help in making my NPCs like that.
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Aug 10, 2013 02:49
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I'm working on a spaceship combat system for FATE (I'm not totally sold on bulldogs or diaspora). Right now, I'm trying to think of what aims for sides will be - When two (or more) groups of spaceships conflict with each other, what will be possible aims for each side? So far, I've got: Catch (someone or something) Escape (ditto) Destroy Diasble (including capture) Defend (yourself, a convoy, and so on) Any other suggestions would help massively. Before I try to 'solve' the thing, I want to make sure I'm looking at all the applications.
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Aug 10, 2013 02:51
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petrol blue posted:I'm working on a spaceship combat system for FATE (I'm not totally sold on bulldogs or diaspora). Right now, I'm trying to think of what aims for sides will be - When two (or more) groups of spaceships conflict with each other, what will be possible aims for each side? Just spitballing: Lure (into an ambush/trap) Distract (try to keep enemies occupied while your buddies get away - might fall under Defend) Intimidate/Bluff
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Aug 10, 2013 04:36
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Lure is definately a good one, I hadn't considered that at all. Maybe I should just combine escape/catch/lure/bluff into something like 'maneuver'? That is, putting the opposition where you want them without directly hurting them. Or does that become too vague? e: I'd definately consider 'distract' under defend, I'm seeing that catagory as covering everything where your aim is to keep something (including you) from harm without trying to run away or destroy the opposition. Ditto for things like escort runs, though I'm damned if I'm ever forcing my players to do that. Generally, I'd consider intimidate/bluff as something that'd happen before/instead of combat (you convince them that your tiny ship is carrying a ridiculous warhead, they back off, you get away), either that or a means of creating an aspect in the fight. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 10, 2013 04:54
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Stallion Cabana posted:In the same vein, does anyone have any advice on making NPCs feel like actual people, rather then just things to be interacted with? My browser ate the post I started to write, so,  but basically what I do is give the NPCs combat capabilities, as well as a job or station in life/society, an enemy or rival of some kind, an ally who is important to them, and maybe a piece of information that is important to what the PCs are doing (but maybe not so rare that they are the only person who knows it).Seriously I just think through what would make sense for that character (or what sort of person it would make sense to have a particular clue or piece of info) and use the "everything is a plot device" rule. If the character serves a purpose to advance the story, that's usually good enough. If you want them to be broader than that, it should be because they fill a niche that your PCs can keep coming back to. i.e. the Police Commissioner, the Private Eye, the Mayor, the Arms Dealer, etc.
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Aug 10, 2013 06:08
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Stallion Cabana posted:In the same vein, does anyone have any advice on making NPCs feel like actual people, rather then just things to be interacted with?
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Aug 10, 2013 16:28
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Stallion Cabana posted:Does anyone have any advice on how to work using Social skills into an interesting finish instead of 'Stunt, Roll, beat Difficulty, you win'? I had been considering a multiple rolls with a set number of Threshold successes to get, does anyone have any possibly interesting ideas they've used? It was a Nobilis game, not Exalted. But once a party I was in did do something that may work as a jumping off point: Prior to a big invasion of our Chancel we were invited to a party by the Veiled Lady, who was the demigod of the Future. As a reward for resolving old rivalries, calling in favors, and other social maneuvering at the party every time a character used his pull to make the upcoming invasion the GM would give them an item. Two examples were a picture and a line from the Book of Destiny. The picture was awarded after a situation half played into the party's favor, and was a painting of the allies that would stand with us as we faced the Excrucians. The player who was focusing on calling people that owed us or were as friendly to us as gods get got to name two people that would definitely be there. However since the plan didn't go exactly as he wanted it to he had to choose one of them to die in the battle. The second player did exceptionally well and burned a lot of miracle points manipulating people he specifically had dirt on. After some really great negotiation he was given a passage from the Book. Since he did so well he was allowed to add, subtract, or change three words in the passage. Whatever the meaning of the new phrasing was would come to pass. There were some other things but at the moment I can't remember the specifics. But I was a big fan of that session.
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Aug 10, 2013 19:23
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Stallion Cabana posted:I don't really have a direct need for advice, but it's more of a few general things. I've never had a game that didn't self-destruct in a few sessions for various reasons, and now that I have a game that's become much longer, I'm worried about making missteps and derailing things. Even a little generic advice on things I'm having trouble with would help me a lot. Resist damage by channeling virtues as justifiable (eg. deal 3 damage trying to persuade a bureaucrat to take a bribe, they channel 3 conviction or temperance to resist, but not valour/compassion). If they can't spend any more channels, you successfully persuade them. It's really fun and makes social combat more coherent, forces PCs to try and frame their arguments more strongly around their foes' motivations, and plugs it into regular combat as you can smack-talk to drain Willpower from your opponents by forcing them to channel. We houseruled appearance back in as a social weapon later, but didn't get to test it a great deal.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:23
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Anybody here tried setting up a campaign with http://roll20.net I'm currently thinking about starting a campaign on this website since one of our "possible" players lives about 2 hours from the rest of the group. It looks like a good tool to me, but I would like other's opinion on it.
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Aug 11, 2013 02:40
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I use it, I like it. I use Skype for audio since Roll20's sometimes didn't work for people, but they've updated since then and now it's mostly inertia and the ability to record sessions.
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Aug 11, 2013 02:57
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Have they gotten line of sight in yet? I was doing a big pepsi challenge between that and MapTool, but we were so happy with MapTool and roll20 didn't have line of sight that we never got to the other half of the bake-off.
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Aug 11, 2013 02:58
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I believe Roll20's Dynamic Lighting thing is that, but I don't bother and just manually manage the fog of war.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:00
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Last I heard it wasn't...like, you could use it that way, if you wanted to give up actual lighting, but it was kludgey and not really intended to work that way. Someone around here claimed they were working on proper line of sight support, but I never found anything about it on their forum or elsewhere.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:01
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Stallion Cabana posted:In the same vein, does anyone have any advice on making NPCs feel like actual people, rather then just things to be interacted with? I'm going to tackle this in depth because I think NPCs are one of my strongest points and because I love to talk about myself. It depends. One of the first lessons I learned about NPCs is that depth is more a perceived thing than anything you do as a GM. You can write a 10 page backstory and the players will never know about it, or you can gin up a character in 30 seconds while you're panicking in the bathroom that they'll remember forever. So figure out what you mean by 'depth' when you are trying to create it. You probably mean 'memorable' and 'complex', in which case proceed to the steps below. Remember that what makes a character memorable are their quirks - not how they look and not what they've done, but that one thing that makes them stand out. Accents are your best friend, as are verbal ticks, hand motions, and other cheap tricks. Barring that they might constantly talk about themselves, they might always be on the verge of crying, or they might point at the top of their head all the time. Don't be afraid to be a caricature. Characters are caricatures. It's okay to make them want to "feel" realistic but they rarely are realistic. Also to that end always give them a name. Figure out what your NPC wants. As with characterization, keep it short and to the point. This should ideally be something they want in general, along with something they want right now, in the scene. Characters should always be pursuing their agenda, because that again makes them more interesting. As a rule I never use a character if I can't reveal something about them or further their agenda even in a tiny way. TV shows don't have characters on screen for no reason, neither do I. Figure out something that makes the character heroic, and figure out what the character's biggest flaw is. If the character is a villain it's okay to write "NOTHING" next to the 'heroic' line, but it works pretty good for anti-villains. All characters have flaws, even the mightiest. This is really important for PC-on-NPC actions to avoid the feeling that the same approach works on every NPC and to avoid 'unmovable NPC' syndrome. Finally make sure the NPC is fun to play. If s/he's not fun to play than s/he's not fun to interact with either. Go over the top, escalate the drama, bring some emotion into it, and add personal detail. If it isn't working take step back and rework, or start planning to retire the NPC. This information should fit comfortably on the back of a napkin. If it doesn't, you've written too much. If you can't remember it, neither can your players. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 06:47
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I gave my players 'the talk' about considering other players experience and solving things OOC instead of trying to kill each other, and it was awkward but I guess it worked because last session seemed to be really fun and productive for everyone. The players even finished off a major story arc. So, thanks for the advice, everyone.
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Aug 11, 2013 16:25
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Any quick suggestions for combat abilities for a D&D 4e monster, ~5th level solo, who is an undead skeleton captain imbued with the favor and power of a faerie of the summer court?
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Aug 12, 2013 21:12
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Iunnrais posted:Any quick suggestions for combat abilities for a D&D 4e monster, ~5th level solo, who is an undead skeleton captain imbued with the favor and power of a faerie of the summer court? Fey Step.
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Aug 12, 2013 21:21
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A little dull... sticking Fey Step on things may be the standard WoTC way of saying something is partially fey, but it isn't memorable enough, and it's not enough to make a solo. I'm thinking to go with a bramble thorn theme... do some small amount of fixed damage to anyone attacking him in melee, creating zones of energy-sucking thorns on the map, that sort of thing. I know I'm answering my own question a bit, but I usually like the kinds of ideas that pop up brainstorming here. I just think fae should be more interesting than merely teleporting things.
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Aug 12, 2013 21:59
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Every time I try to use skills in 4e it feels really sloppy and unstructured and I'm not really sure why, does anyone have any tips on making the skills more fun to use.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:31
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1: Only roll when both success and failure would be interesting and further the plot. If the result is inevitable in either direction, or failure has no consequence (i.e. failing to pick the lock just means you get to try again), don't roll. Just narrate. 2: Don't, as DM, call for skill checks unless the party is completely clueless as to what to do next. Try to let them suggest the courses of action, and the skills, and say yes wherever possible.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:36
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Iunnrais posted:A little dull... sticking Fey Step on things may be the standard WoTC way of saying something is partially fey, but it isn't memorable enough, and it's not enough to make a solo. I'm thinking to go with a bramble thorn theme... do some small amount of fixed damage to anyone attacking him in melee, creating zones of energy-sucking thorns on the map, that sort of thing. The biggest weakness to solo monsters is that they don't do a lot to make the battlefield dynamic; is the encounter outdoors? If so, give him a minor action ability to used bramble thorns to remake the battlefield: can build walls, create the zones you mentioned as difficult terrain, or can move/merge into the brambles for partial cover and/or concealment. Give him options with the power, when he uses one the previous things fade at the start of his next turn (walls deissolve, zones dissapate, cover sucks into the ground) and let the power recharge on a 3+. Use it every time it's available, and the players should both enjoy the dynamics it creates and curse the predicaments it places them in. And then throw an optional skill challenge their way if they try to out think the ability. Nature, Arcana stick out as good top skills, but let them come up with their own ideas and find a way to fit them in. Succeed, and they can disrupt his control of it. Have the brambles start randomly firing and affect him just like the PCs. Walls appearing and disappearing, zones tangling everyone's feet, etc. It's rough, but off the top of my head I think that it'd be an ability that isn't overpowering, but is interesting with the potential for the PCs to feel good about either overcoming or subverting, either way they go. Then again, I'm a sucker for skill challenges happening in fights that have real, tangible effects on the fight.
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Aug 13, 2013 02:49
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For a solo I did recently I gave him multiple actions and a way to shake off conditions, as well as a bunch of battlefield control abilities, a good spot to aim for is to make him behave as much like 2-4 enemies as possible, giving him plenty of chances to make saving throws and a couple ways to throw off marks and the like, and the battlefield control is to keep the players from flanking him/getting into position and making the fight a dps race.
Nihnoz fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 03:48
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Nihnoz posted:Every time I try to use skills in 4e it feels really sloppy and unstructured and I'm not really sure why, does anyone have any tips on making the skills more fun to use. Skills are one of my weakest areas too. But what spaceinvader said. Don't make a skill roll crucial to the plot/dungeon/session. Because eventually you'll have one botched and: A)Rogue feels like a lovely Rogue because he rolled a 1 on Thievery. B)Fighter/Wizard/Cleric are all pissed because the session was decided without them even being involved. C*)The Bard lucks out and gets a 23 Thievery, making the Rogue look dumb and redundant. *This happens mostly when groups have overlapping skills. I just use skills for shortcuts/cool combat stuff. If the Rogue can lockpick his way into a waterway the group gets to save a few surges. Same as if the Bard had conned their way into the banquet. I may also hide bonus loot around as a reward for good rolls and play. In combat things like "Roll Athletics to knock this statue onto the dragon" can give people incentive to explore the combat spaces. Unfortunately it also means that you effectively make two attack rolls.
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Aug 13, 2013 04:03
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Razorwired posted:In combat things like "Roll Athletics to knock this statue onto the dragon" can give people incentive to explore the combat spaces. Unfortunately it also means that you effectively make two attack rolls. What if you instead said something like "add your Athletics to your attack roll, if it exceeds their AC by 10 or more you get the effect"? So if the dragon's AC is 15, and you get a 19 attack roll (including bonuses) + 6 Athletics making 25 so you hit them into the statue.
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Aug 13, 2013 05:45
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Iunnrais posted:Any quick suggestions for combat abilities for a D&D 4e monster, ~5th level solo, who is an undead skeleton captain imbued with the favor and power of a faerie of the summer court? Always be Grabbing. Well, not always, but grab is cool and underrated. Do something like, "ongoing 10 necrotic damage while grabbed" and maybe a cool choke-slam attack that makes the target restrained or something. My rule of thumb for Escape DC is 10+PC level, btw
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Aug 13, 2013 05:46
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Mendrian posted:Remember that what makes a character memorable are their quirks - not how they look and not what they've done, but that one thing that makes them stand out. Accents are your best friend, as are verbal ticks, hand motions, and other cheap tricks. Barring that they might constantly talk about themselves, they might always be on the verge of crying, or they might point at the top of their head all the time. Don't be afraid to be a caricature. Characters are caricatures. It's okay to make them want to "feel" realistic but they rarely are realistic. Most of what you said in that post is good advice, especially giving every NPC a simple want or agenda, but I disagree with this part. Ham-forcing up some wacky quirk gets annoying or ignored more often than not, especially if you're faking accents and twitching all over the place. Iunnrais posted:Any quick suggestions for combat abilities for a D&D 4e monster, ~5th level solo, who is an undead skeleton captain imbued with the favor and power of a faerie of the summer court? Summer court: he lights a lot of poo poo on fire. Complicated, terrain-lingering fires everywhere that he can just ignore because he's a non-flammable pile of walking bones. General faerie: he's got illusions. Maybe he plays a shell game with appearing to be in two or three places at once. He does a fey step to somewhere else, but leaves a hologram behind. The second time he does it, he just whips up an illusion somewhere else but doesn't actually move.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:14
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Yeah, 'create decoy minions and teleport as a minor action' is a fun one to pull, especially if he can then use any of the three as a source for LoS, and if the PCs can make skill checks to spot the right one. It also helps stop the boss getting swamped in melee and makes the battle move about a lot more.
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Aug 14, 2013 11:23
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Does anyone know some good ways to represent casino games with dice rolling? Slot machine, poker, blackjack, wheel of fortune, that sort of thing. My players want to go gambling and it'd be neat if I could offer them something other than "Casino Island: Everyone Likes Craps, Right?" Russian Roulette was pretty easy to work out, at least.
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Aug 15, 2013 13:00
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My Lovely Horse posted:Does anyone know some good ways to represent casino games with dice rolling? Slot machine, poker, blackjack, wheel of fortune, that sort of thing. My players want to go gambling and it'd be neat if I could offer them something other than "Casino Island: Everyone Likes Craps, Right?" Just bring a deck of cards and you can actually play a couple of hands of poker or blackjack. Why use dice at all?
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Aug 15, 2013 13:50
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I'm glad you asked! I figure not everyone around the table may know or be good at poker, it takes a while to finish a game and we're not really meeting for poker, and maybe most importantly (or at least the one I can imagine most will be brought up): someone's character might have skills that allow them to be better at gambling than others, in which case they'll want to roll for something, and I can easier manipulate a dice roll than their hand of poker. Although, if there's a good abstraction of a card game that fulfills those conditions while using actual cards, that would also be pretty cool. (I'm also not sure yet how much any abstracted casino game would actually enter into play, just covering my bases for now.)
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Aug 15, 2013 14:09
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Grandicap posted:Just bring a deck of cards and you can actually play a couple of hands of poker or blackjack. Why use dice at all? Because then I can't pretend that I'm good! 
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Aug 15, 2013 14:09
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My Lovely Horse posted:I'm glad you asked! You could incorporate game mechanics into the card game, such as using skill checks to reveal the dealer's other card in blackjack, or another player's hand in poker, giving more skilled characters an advantage that's in-line with their character (i.e. being able to "read" the table/other players better)
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Aug 15, 2013 14:30
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For a slot machine run Xd10 with X being the number of reels plus whatever way a character may try to tip the odds(spending extra coin, having skills relevant to probability, cheating). So on a 3 reel slot could be 6d10 if the character were to snake machines that haven't paid out recently and was dropping the maximum bet to increase his chances. For poker give them a hand plus extra cards for good bluff/insight checks for reading the table or any other skills you can justify. Blackjack and craps are fast enough at their core to be stripped down and done more or less straight. To add flavor you might ask craps players to use 2 of 6 "house dice" for the roll. Again, if you have a sneaky character in the group on a successful cheat attempt let him set one die to a number of his choosing.
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Aug 15, 2013 15:25
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My Lovely Horse posted:I'm glad you asked! Two different dice, one that's the skill check (use one skill for regular, another for cheating), one for that round's stakes. You might have a brief chart for the winnings, or just make the winnings a multiple of the stakes die result. Failures on regular cost you money; failures on the cheating skill cost you money and get you caught on higher-stakes rolls. This is more or less what Edge of the Empire does to simulate sabacc, except obviously the two types of dice are on the same dice in that game.
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Aug 15, 2013 15:41
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How about dice poker?
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Aug 16, 2013 11:31
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How about Liar's Dice? I'm a new GM after my group's GM stepped down. I'm continuing his campaign, and running my second session next week. I have at least one player who's very uninterested in combat, and I'm looking for a way to make the upcoming session interesting. They'll be making their way upward through a series of deep mines adjacent to a city. I'd like to handle it as sort of a maze, but I don't know how to do that in a way that will be interesting and not completely reliant on combat. The system is Pathfinder, by the way,
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Aug 17, 2013 15:38
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