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Well, you are the only one at the table who knows what the bad guy's hit points are... But if you don't want to fudge things, give the bad guy escape abilities. Like, maybe something that, when he would otherwise be killed, he instead teleports to a safe place. Players have to find it. Teleportation doesn't make sense? He has an ability that gives him great acrobatic skills when he's low on health, as he desperately takes chances he otherwise wouldn't, letting him tumble and jump away, climbing into the rafters, to the roof, and escaping that way. Hey, it turns out he's just the minion or the real villain. Or a different villain is able to step in to threaten the region now that Villain A is no longer around. Power vacuums can be fun. In the specific case of the vampire, don't forget that he can do things like turn to mist and escape that way. If they have no way to counter that, just use it whenever he runs low on health. It still lets them foil him (since he's in no shape to continue his wicked plans), but they have to stop him again the next time.
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Nov 9, 2013 20:29
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I and my regular group are considering starting a long-term campaign, but we can't seem to agree on a system. They have their own homebrew system that they favour. It would actually be really good for the type of game we're planning to do because it's not rooted in any particular setting, but I'm not a big fan of its actual mechanics. I could definitely adapt it to my needs while keeping the flexibility - matter of fact, I've already mostly worked it out in my head. But then again, they all live in the same city and meet up all the time to play that system, whereas I can only make it once a month and then it's something like a 2-3 hour trip, it's the only real-life gaming I ever get in anymore, and I'd kind of really like it if that happened with a system I liked and was 100% comfortable running like 4E or 13th Age, even if it required some rewriting and reflavouring to adapt to settings other than "fantasy with swords and dragons and poo poo." Not sure here if I should just suck it up or be a hardass about it at the risk of that campaign just not happening then. A risk for all of us since they all seem to really like the campaign idea.
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Nov 9, 2013 20:51
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What about the mechanics don't you like? If the system works as-is then I wouldn't change it much, or at least give it a few sessions before changing it - having rules that everyone already understands might well make up for the difficulties of it not being quite perfect. Having said that, if your system problems are game-specific, why not just email them with something like "I'm not sure how the system will handle things like [situation], my thought is to mod it like this, what do you reckon"?
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Nov 9, 2013 21:05
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The mechanics are generally very involved and usually complex, and it seems like their chief concern was to simulate physics, or rather represent each actual observable event with a dice roll, than design a game that plays well. For example every attack involves an attack and a defense roll and you might still do no damage at all depending on your opponent's armor; everyone has two sets of HP with one doubling as endurance and the other tracking actual injury/life force; there are no less than ten basic ability scores and each single skill is influenced by two of them. Nothing that I couldn't redesign but yeah at some point pretty early in the process I have to ask myself whether it would still be the game they like. I did play a short adventure with them a few years ago and those were all elements I didn't like back then. My approach is more "you want an awesome thing to happen, roll to see how awesome it really gets" and the system seems more like "you want a thing to happen, there are three things that could prevent it from happening, roll for these three but if it does happen and you roll really well, it might even end up awesome, and that's worth all the times nothing happens, right?" Currently waiting on some more info about details from the main design guy so I can drop them a line detailing what exactly I would want to change. e: although that being said, right now I'm really more concerned with the basic philosophical question of whether it's a dick thing to say "these are systems I'm comfortable running, take it or leave it" given the circumstances.
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Nov 9, 2013 21:31
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That system sounds very, um, not my thing. Not a fan of the simulationist. It does raise the question of whether they'd get on with 4e or 13th age - did they design that system because it's what they want from a game, and if so, will the enjoy more abstract things? I'm not saying they're grogs or anything, just that what you run sounds very different to what they do. As for the ethics... In my opinion it's completely reasonable to say 'I don't want to run this system', but then you have to accept that they might say 'we don't want to play system X' and you end up without a game at all.
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Nov 9, 2013 22:39
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Oh they enjoy 4E and 13th Age fine, some more than others but generally they do, we played 4E for years and have a few sessions of 13th Age under our belt. But that said they do tend to treat both as more simulationist games than I would ideally like. (These guys are all physicists - I've long suspected there may be a connection there.) What happened is, two of them have been working on this system for a while, they all started a regular campaign in it and have come to like it, so they suggested it for the idea I had in mind, which is, depending on how charitably you look at it, a mix or a ripoff of Cloud Atlas and Live A Live - and if nothing else, that homebrew genuinely is really flexible, so they do have a strong point there. But then again the core system is also rooted in medieval fantasy and all the flexibility is just varying degrees of taking stuff out and/or inserting subsystems, so I dunno whether we aren't all kidding ourselves in that situation.
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Nov 9, 2013 23:04
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We didn't play for a while, but I'm running the group sent to Fantasy Arabia who willingly unleashed Mummy Saddam Hussein. Their benefactor, the Duke, sent them over to investigate the doubts his close friend, the local Sultan, was having about his court following the return of the Big Bad. After many adventures they discovered the Sultan was replaced by a shapeshifter working for said Big Bad somewhere between the letter with worries and their arrival to investigate and only his close advisor, the Vizier, realized this. This Vizier had no chance to oppose the fake Sultan directly, so he did his best to disrupt things behind the scenes. Completely oblivious to the lies, deceit and political plays to subtly deal with this the party eventually discovered the truth and agreed to rescue the original ruler, held captive by an ancient Mummy ruler, bound to his pyramid by a curse. The Mummy ruler, bad news all around with a history of slavery, mass killings and resurrections, completely tyrannic rule, etc. suggested to instead just leave the Sultan behind and return back home, so that he could use the Sultan's blood to break the curse trapping him in the pyramid. The promise was he would break out, take over the country, kill all Big Bad influences, be a dependable ally and reward the party with gear specifically suited to defeat the Big Bad. All they had to do was let an innocent man, close friend to their benefactor, die and don't interrupt while half the continent was slaughtered or enslaved. Desperate for allies after some failed quests to get support and hungry for magic items they accepted. As posted earlier the idea was to have their benefactor be devastated over the sacrifice of his friend and send the party on a suicide mission, leaving them behind enemy lines because they killed his close friend. This wasn't exactly a punishment for their decision, but more of a reap-what-you-sow kinda thing. The Duke needs allies, but he cannot forgive his friend being left to die. Yesterday, they rolled a 36 to convince the Duke that his friend the Sultan was already turned when they got there and the only guy fit to take over and oppose the Big Bad was the Mummy. So yeah, they claimed, while it was a lovely situation they were at least able to give power to someone who would support the Duke, instead of plunging everything into a chaos which wouldn't help anyone. They didn't deal with the Vizier in any way and their escape from the city after returning from the pyramid did not go unnoticed, so the Vizier must've realized they didn't rescue the original Sultan. The players think they got away with everything, but the Vizier contact the Duke about what happened and depending on some rolls for his own investigations he might not believe the party and still leave them without a pick up during a mission behind enemy lines. I am very excited about everything going on, it is the most fun we've had in quite some time.
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Nov 9, 2013 23:21
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Writer Cath posted:It's such a dilemma. The villain you intend to be a one-shot fight turns into the overarching villain while the mega-statted bad guy goes down in one night thanks to a few lucky crits. Well, the former isn't necessarily a bad thing: if the players get emotionally invested in a secondary antagonist then that's awesome and fun and of course he's going to go join forces with this other big badass who has it in for your players. As for the latter, if you don't want a bad guy to go down yet, don't put him into the line of fire. That's what lieutenants -- or unwitting stooges, or simulacra -- are for.
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Nov 10, 2013 01:46
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How often do people run their games? And do you always play on the same day of the week? I'm into 4e right now and I feel like one session every 10 days would be ideal, if I could get enough players out for each session.
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Nov 13, 2013 06:03
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P.d0t posted:How often do people run their games? And do you always play on the same day of the week? My old D&D game ran every fortnight, so that I'd have time to do prep between sessions. The disadvantage was that missing a session meant no game for a month, so generally when a player couldn't make it we carried on anyway. Running the same day of the week is vital for me: it's far, far easier to keep every Wednesday free than it is to spend the end of each session juggling five players' calendars and finding a spot everybody can make.
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Nov 13, 2013 08:03
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I need some imagination help. We run a episodic GURPS game as 80's action movie cops, where we each take turns running one or two session story arcs before handing the reigns over to the next person. This gives us all a chance to play and GM, and we have built an ongoing and persistent setting history and storyline to work with. So, we've recently come to the decision that gunfights are way too deadly, so we should focus on the other crazy antics normally found in action films, like foot chases, or motorcycle v helicopter fights (clotheslining a motorcyclist with helicopter skids at 60mph!). There's only so many times you can do the same old poo poo though, so I need some ideas of crimes, crazy heist/robbery plans for them to foil or investigate, chase locations/vehicles/interruptions/complications to throw in. Next game is mine, and I'm looking at doing a single shot, maybe chasing down some Chinese criminals, who are really the star acrobats of the Red Star Circus in town from China, using their acrobatic skills to commit the crime. Question is, what's the crime, how do they commit it out of the ordinary, and where does it lead the party in the ensuing chaos?
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Nov 13, 2013 08:14
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crowtribe posted:Next game is mine, and I'm looking at doing a single shot, maybe chasing down some Chinese criminals, who are really the star acrobats of the Red Star Circus in town from China, using their acrobatic skills to commit the crime. Question is, what's the crime, how do they commit it out of the ordinary, and where does it lead the party in the ensuing chaos? I'd have it seem like a mysterious and shady person is responsible for the crimes that are being committed (always in the area, poking around the crime scene, caught trying to remove evidence) but they are actually a Chinese officer sent to catch the Red Star Gang in the act. They can then team up with the party. Maybe the acrobats make an impossible leap from a roof to another room/window. Some gap that's too wide to jump across normally, some reason they couldn't have used a ladder or run a line between the buildings. They make the jump by forming a human tower and one of them jumping off a board held by the top most member. Maybe they steal something heavy with a vibration sensor on it by moving it "light as feather stiff as a board" style.
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Nov 13, 2013 08:31
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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P.d0t posted:How often do people run their games? And do you always play on the same day of the week? I run whenever my players have time, usually this is once a month. We are probably not the standard, though. As the DM I email everyone a list of dates I'm available the next month, first to reply takes out the dates he can't make it, and so on. You end up with some dates, agree on one, play, repeat the process. We always drink during the games, so weekdays are out. Everyone has regular stuff in the weekends to take into account, complicating things. There is also the agreement that we plan D&D only on days your schedule is empty, so nobody would cancel stuff to make it to a session even if everyone else can make it. We sometimes have two session in two weeks, but once it took 3 months because of summer holidays.
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Nov 13, 2013 08:38
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See, we ran basically once or twice a week for 10 months on the campaign we just wrapped up, doing "pick the best day" for each week. It was easier to get a full table at first, because we started with 9 players. I found after a while, once I got a feel for compositing and tailoring monsters, that I needed a bit more than a week for the extra prep. I'm in a similar position again (9 players) and I have a dude who can only do Thursdays and some Mondays, another dude who can't do Wednesdays, a couple who can only do weekends, etc. I think I might have the DM run the main campaign every 10-11 days (Monday/Thursday) and then I'll run an off-game every 2nd or 3rd weekend (ideally in between the other game days, but I dunno if/how my weekends off will line up; I'm basically the only one of the group who does shift work) I really should just get a job in scheduling. 
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Nov 13, 2013 08:52
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P.d0t posted:How often do people run their games? And do you always play on the same day of the week? One of my groups is online on Wednesdays, and two of us are willing to GM, so we almost always meet. If players can't make it a given week, those who are left either play boardgames online (Boite a Jeux, Brettspielwelt, Steam, iSketch). The regular time and the alternate activities keep that time slot open in everyone's schedule. My other group (D&D 4e) is weekends, and has very variable attendance (half the time we have a guy and his two teenage daughters, and half the time they're with their mother) with anywhere from 2 to 8 players; this is less of a problem because D&D is so much easier to scale. We just make it canon that the PCs of those who aren't there have Helljoint and are resting, or are guarding the camp, or are shopping, or whatever.
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Nov 13, 2013 17:01
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crowtribe posted:Next game is mine, and I'm looking at doing a single shot, maybe chasing down some Chinese criminals, who are really the star acrobats of the Red Star Circus in town from China, using their acrobatic skills to commit the crime. Question is, what's the crime, how do they commit it out of the ordinary, and where does it lead the party in the ensuing chaos? One of the guys is a contortionist; he gets into secure locations by hiding in a box or crawling through air vents. The latter might make for an interesting chase scene variant as the PCs track him through the vents. EDIT: The criminals steal rare jewels; their next target is sure to be the Blood Diamond, a fist-sized red gem with a reputation for cursing people ever since its original owner, the beautiful Crown Princess of Ruritania, was shot and killed by an anarchist in 1886. It is scheduled to be displayed at a local museum as part of a traveling exhibit on old Ruritania, which is now part of Czechoslovakia. Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 05:39
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UGH why is the pathfinder DM manual 600 pages long. Just... Ugh ugugugug. This is not fun. I've been running a lot of sprawl and dungeonworld and apocalypse world games (and some white wolf) so I kind of got used to rule light stuff, but now I'm flipping through this huge pdf and I just want someone to kill me because there is a rule for everything and I honestly feel like it's a bit stifling for any innovation. Not to mention my players said, "Don't worry only the combat rules are important" which makes me think, "Oh yaaay murder hobos, cool I'll just play the baddies / goodies you squash forever and ever." I'm a bit frustrated because I got roped into this kind of out of the blue, and I feel like I'd be a jerk for saying no (They don't know any DMs.) Is there a program I can download or something to make the worst of Pathfinder rule crunch better?
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Nov 14, 2013 05:45
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Turtlicious posted:UGH why is the pathfinder DM manual 600 pages long. What's the matter with just running combat by the book and winging the rest? The game is there to let you and your players have fun; the game should serve your needs, not the other way around. Definitely acquaint yourself with the rules, I think; take whatever time you need to learn the system, but don't be afraid to just toss rules if you feel like they would get in the way of having fun. Your players won't - or shouldn't - mind, especially if none of them are DMs.
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Nov 14, 2013 05:55
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Any advice for just winging a whole campaign? I've got a 4e group with way too many loving people, so we're gonna pretty much split off a 2nd campaign on the fly. Is there any merit to statting up PCs using the DMG2 guidelines for companion NPCs and just going buckwild murderhoboing? I think I wanna do something with simple characters (possibly high-lethality?) So might this be the way to go?
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Nov 14, 2013 08:38
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P.d0t posted:Any advice for just winging a whole campaign? I've got a 4e group with way too many loving people, so we're gonna pretty much split off a 2nd campaign on the fly. You're considering making PCs into companion PCs for the first group, or just making simplified PCs for the second group? Either way I definitely advocate making smaller groups. I think making the second group a lighter tone from the first group in the same universe might be fun. It means you can run a funny game on Tuesday and a 'serious' game on Thursday or whatever, and have one group's antics indirectly affect the others. That would help keep things fresh for me, at least, so it's like I'm running two completely different games.
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Nov 14, 2013 09:18
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Naw, I just want simple characters; I wouldn't want to make a game where you tell players their dude is just there to hold the "real" PC's jock strap. The thing is we have a DM with a very specific setting in mind, but I tend to over-recruit. I'm gonna split off some of the players and run something for them, but I have nothing planned, unlike the "main" campaign. So I just want pointers to do up a quick, easy, light game but still keep things moving and fun. Is there any good CYOA-style guidelines specific to 4e? E: actually, since the main game is an evil campaign that I'll be playing in, maybe I can run the goodguy side of the campaign and build towards a climactic crossover battle. I'll see if that'll work for the other DM. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 09:56
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Turtlicious posted:I'm a bit frustrated because I got roped into this kind of out of the blue, and I feel like I'd be a jerk for saying no (They don't know any DMs.) As GM, your fun is important too. Saying 'I don't want to GM in this system' doesn't make you a jerk.
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Nov 14, 2013 10:11
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A DM's job is to make sure all players have fun. The DM is also a player. I'm guessing your players know Pathfinder? If so, maybe you could have one co-gm and sort of be OpFor commander and walk you through the crunchier parts of the rules.
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Nov 14, 2013 10:51
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Turtlicious posted:UGH why is the pathfinder DM manual 600 pages long. If the game is really not your thing, then explain that to your players. Expecting you to read a 600 page book on an RPG you don't have any interest in so that you can spend hours playing an RPG you don't have any interest in is kind of unreasonable. It's not like we're talking about some light little indie RPG where you can learn it in less time than it takes to do a session -- I briefly held the paper version of this book a few days ago, and you could kill someone with that thing. The longer you put off saying something about your concerns, the worse it'll be when it comes out. If you're really having a lovely time during play, they'll probably notice. You're all adults here, right? They should be able to understand that Pathfinder is not necessarily the kind of thing everyone is going to like.
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Nov 14, 2013 13:25
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Turtlicious posted:Is there a program I can download or something to make the worst of Pathfinder rule crunch better? Be honest with your players; don't DM bad games with bad rules that you don't like. Just straight-up tell them "I actually don't want to run this, and if you want to play it, someone else will have to DM."
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Nov 14, 2013 14:29
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Be honest with your players; don't DM bad games with bad rules that you don't like. Just straight-up tell them "I actually don't want to run this, and if you want to play it, someone else will have to DM." Let me emphasize this with my story. My group started when a bunch of us blindly signed up for a Star Wars game and the DM vanished (we wondered if he had actually died or something, we had no way of knowing) after the 2nd session. I volunteered to run a D&D game. The other players wanted me to run 3.5e or Pathfinder. I offered 4e. They said that 4e made no sense from a simulationist standpoint. I said I had no time to build statblocks and set up encounters under 3.5e/Pathfinder, and that simulation is more a result of the DM than the rules. That the world either reacts to players in a simulationist way, or it doesn't, and that the dice don't really have THAT much an impact on the feel of a world. I argued that you can run Hack'n'Slash in any system, and Deep Roleplaying in any system. They started arguing specific rule points. Diagonal Movement ruining tactical position on the mat. I said that's an easy houserule. They argued the watering down of magic. I said I can bloody well make magic seem magical regardless of the rules. They argued that fewer skills meant less improvisation, and I said you can still do anything the old skills let you do just by saying you want to try, we'll figure out the dice later. And I reiterated my point: I did not want to DM 3.5e or Pathfinder because that's way too much work for the DM, and gently caress that. 4e let me design encounters much faster, leaving more time for building the actual homebrewed setting, plot, story, characters (not their stat blocks, the actual personalities and how they interact), etc. They reluctantly agreed. Barely one month in they were hooked. We've been gaming weekly for 2 years straight now, only missing a session rarely. They actively mock the Pathfinder players who game at the same time we do at the FLGS. They still argue that there are mechanical problems in 4e that COULD be bad... if you had a DM that treated the rules hamfistedly and literally all the time, and who built the game around the rules instead of around the story. But you don't have to do that. In summary... don't read this as an evangelistic post for 4e. Everyone knows that goons love 4e, that's not the point. The point is exactly what has been said-- the DM has to enjoy the system, or NO ONE will enjoy the system. Conversely, if the DM enjoys the system, it will inspire him and allow him to build the rest of the game well, and that's what is fun. If I had enjoyed Pathfinder, I'm sure we could be having a blast in Pathfinder. But I knew from prior experience that I wouldn't be able to run Pathfinder, not and have a life or keep my job. Run the system you can run. The rules don't matter as much as the players, and you are a player. If you have good players, you will enjoy it and have fun. Don't burn yourself out! On the other hand... rarely is any rules system that bad for a player. So if someone else wants to DM, do whatever system that DM wants to use. I've never had a player burn out on any system, but I've often seen DMs get bogged down.
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Nov 14, 2013 15:32
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Iunnrais posted:The point is exactly what has been said-- the DM has to enjoy the system, or NO ONE will enjoy the system. Conversely, if the DM enjoys the system, it will inspire him and allow him to build the rest of the game well, and that's what is fun.
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Nov 14, 2013 15:54
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My Lovely Horse posted:If you look further up the page, I'm in a similar position right now. I may have to quote that at my players. That is potent wisdom.
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Nov 15, 2013 10:10
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Going back to that homebrew system I mentioned a few days ago for a second.quote:For example every attack involves an attack and a defense roll and you might still do no damage at all depending on your opponent's armor What happens is you roll an attack against your opponents AC, which is calculated from their size, the average of two of their ability scores, 1/2 their weapon skill and the armor they're wearing. So it's a static number and like in D&D if you go over it you do damage, but if you roll between their AC and what their AC would be without the armor (i.e. if only the armor keeps them from getting hit) the damage you do gets reduced. Armor has a reduction stat specifically for that purpose and you have an armor skill that factors in with that. Damage can get reduced to 0, oh yes and if your opponent has a shield they can roll a shield skill check to avoid an attack entirely. That is the basic bread and butter attack. Don't even get me started on special attacks or, god forbid, magic. I said it was "nothing I couldn't redesign" but looking at the details now I seriously wouldn't know where to begin. There seems to be no way to make a monster or NPC that isn't straight up the PC generation process.
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Nov 17, 2013 23:02
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So MiBG made Encounters kind of a nightmare at my FLGS because the parties would diverge wildly in terms of story/tone. It made the tables hard to trade players when attendance called for it and discouraged new players from jumping in. We also had powergamers sitting with hardcore roleplayers, this led to both sides getting irritated. Because of this the DMs have all agreed to meet before we start this season to figure out a way to group players in terms of who wants to play the diplomat and who wants to murderhobo around. At our session 0 and Gameday this will probably entail handing out a questionnaire to the regulars and figuring out what new people want to do. Has anyone else tried this and has it worked out? If it has worked/you've done how should I word the questions to get honest answers? When I just asked my table they universally said "I like roleplaying with some combat" when one of them literally fell asleep one session and another complained when another character said "gently caress cultists" and charged during a negotiation.
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Nov 17, 2013 23:27
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My Lovely Horse posted:Going back to that homebrew system I mentioned a few days ago for a second. Find a copy of Rolemaster Arms Law as a compromise. It is brilliantly fast and brutal, very easy to convert most systems to and has plenty of grog cred. They do a skill system in one A4 page that is probably the best one I've ever used. Don't go near Rolemaster character creation though, that way lies gibbering madness.
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Nov 18, 2013 01:19
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Minor cross-post: Do any of you use the dwarven forge sets? I'm just curious which pieces you find you use the most and which you wish you had more of. I've begun casting my hirst molds in earnest and I'm roughly using their sets as a guide for what I might like to have. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 03:40
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Bad Munki posted:Do any of you use the dwarven forge sets? I've never used pre-made scenery. I'd love to model some, I'd enjoy doing that regardless of game, but having pre-made scenery seems like it'd lead to "oh, another 'desecrated shrine'?". That is, I'd worry that I'd end up making encounters to fit the scenery rather than the other way around. e: Might want to check that link. With pre-made scenery, if I was going to do it, then as many walls and low cover sections as possible - not as fun as the big set-pieces, but much more flexible. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 04:32
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Yeah, I'm making modular pieces that I can put together to form a map, rather than large monolithic sets. e: Oh, haha, not sure how that link got mixed up. Whoops.  Here's an example set, just for reference:  You can see how you can put those together to make various rooms and chambers. For my purposes, I'm building these things as bare-bones as possible so that they're general purpose. That is, more interesting than drawing lines on a battle mat, but not forcing me to have the same rooms over and over again. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 04:59
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My group has developed our homebrew setting such that my players want it in book form. Not necessarily to publish (although we wouldn't mind putting it out there for others to use) but so that they can have a reference to the world in a nicely organized manner. I've been looking around to see if any other campaign setting books might have a usable "format" to follow for how to organize such a book... except I found that setting books are comprised mostly of statblocks and rules stuff! Anyone know of a setting book that focuses almost exclusively on lore? I want to know how best to organize things. By Country? By Species? By Historical Dates? By Legends? By what knowledge is common and what knowledge is limited? And where to stick in the laws of physics that are unique to our setting (we've strange planar mechanics)? What we have now is practically just a database of lore that is a pain in the neck to look stuff up in, since we've been adding to it piecemeal over the years.
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Nov 20, 2013 22:47
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Iunnrais posted:My group has developed our homebrew setting such that my players want it in book form. Not necessarily to publish (although we wouldn't mind putting it out there for others to use) but so that they can have a reference to the world in a nicely organized manner. I've been looking around to see if any other campaign setting books might have a usable "format" to follow for how to organize such a book... except I found that setting books are comprised mostly of statblocks and rules stuff! 4e Eberron Campaign Guide's pretty good. Sections by country and faction (when it isn't a country), each with sections of information at various levels of secrecy and the skill associated with knowing it.
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Nov 21, 2013 00:33
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Personally, I'd look at making a wiki - that way everyone in the group can edit in bits you've forgotten before you commit to paper, and it might suggest a natural flow for the information. e: I'm working up stuff for a medium-hard sci-fi 'desert' planet, the desert made of rust from ancient machines. I'd love your suggestions on features that might be around. Things like mountain ranges made from huge mostly-intact machines, that sorta stuff. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 21, 2013 |
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Nov 21, 2013 00:35
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petrol blue posted:Personally, I'd look at making a wiki - that way everyone in the group can edit in bits you've forgotten before you commit to paper, and it might suggest a natural flow for the information. Your description immediately reminded me of a short story I listened to ages ago. It's not exactly rust and ancient mechanisms, but close enough.
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Nov 21, 2013 02:00
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Does anyone know where I can find some floor plans for soviet style apartments? I'm running a STALKER conversion and the players are about to reach pripyat. The buildings in STALKER have a really distinctive character and sadly, I'm no architect.
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Nov 22, 2013 05:15
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 15:09 |
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So guys, I need a little bit of help, but I'm not sure how well I can accurately describe it. Essentially, in my current Exalted game, while the others all have fairly obvious ways to give them spotlight- there's a General with a little focus in combat, a combat monster, the party face and necromancer, and the racer-, I have a fifth player who is playing a non-combatant artist. While all the others are really simple to design things around or for, combat, leading men, social challenges and things to do with ghosts, and fast things needed to be taken down, the non-combat artist is extremely hard for me to figure out something to do with them. She has high ranks in Bureaucracy, Linguistics, Lore, and Socialize, but I'm not sure how to make those into challenges that are effective for her without having someone take them over or something. I've had things like her decoding books and things, or identifying oddness in journals, but those aren't really things full stories can be focused around, and I'm not sure how I should do that. If I can help explain this further I will, but I'm not sure how much I can really give here as it's a more general advice thread outside of just showing his sheet, which he might not like.
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Nov 24, 2013 06:37
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