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Nice to hear our adventures inspire others. Rogue Trader is by far the one I like the most out of the 40k RPGs, sure it is clunky but the theme of "super rich fucks want to get even richer by having space adventures in the grim derp future" owns. Characters like John Silvork the Ork Freeboota Kaptain who is our crew's best friend/worst enemy, Jack Mambo the Slaaneshi Sorceror with a disco-theme and Cryptek space nerd would not be nearly as proper hammy bantering villains in other 40k RPGs, but in RT they fit. Also, for some reason every single Explorator PC ever ends up a Heretek. Literally every single PC Explorator this Rogue Trader dynasty has had (5 so far, the Genetor included - quite obviously using Tyranid genes to improve oneself is heretical even if an Inquisitor tells you to do that) were more or less heretical and the GM has commented that all our Explorators would make great villains for Dark Heresy.
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Nov 30, 2013 18:07
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Well, an Explorator attached to a Rogue Trader is going to be a little more... flexible about what counts as heretek than most Magos even if they're otherwise loyal. If they were a hardliner they'd be on a Mechanicus ship. Or become so after the third or fourth time they have to hack together Imperium systems with some alien poo poo to save the day.
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Dec 1, 2013 18:55
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In my rogue trader group, we're all the most hard-liningest assholes in the most hard-liningest way. After our first big combat, the GM gave us a chaos chest. Wrapped up with dark energies of the warp, tempting everyone with it's bountious glories of indescribable power. I announced that I was going to ask the guardsmen for every single explosive they could get their hands on, and we blew the thing sky-high from a mile away. Our next session, we received a strange silver orb, that turned out to be an archeotech AI. The Tech-Priest immediately declared it to be extraordinarily dangerous, and called up his superiors in the adeptus mechanicus to purge the device at once. (Of course, I was a fool who played with it, and so they took a fake copy of it, and it now resides inside a glorious golden couch in my quarters. I'm still not 100% on exactly what it does, except make golden couches.  )
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Dec 1, 2013 19:16
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Hey, that's a dumb way to deal with a Chaos chest full of awesome loot. You should've taken off and hit it with a lance strike from orbit. 
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Dec 1, 2013 19:55
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Well that's a stupid way to deal with loot as well. You sell it to someone you hate a lot and then you kill them later for being corrupted by Chaos. Our group's had our share of hard liners as well, but the characters tend to either get corrupted by the rest or they get sidelined because usually everyone else is busy doing/being horrible things. Our Missionary is mostly a religious genuinely faithful person despite his Tau-connections and Greater Good-beliefs, so when compared to the two other 'human' members of the group, the False Man Seneschal and the Genetor who might not count as human anymore, he seems like a Saint. So his player is planning to go Reaver, a psychotic pirate, because the Missionary is literally broken because of how hosed up we are.
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Dec 1, 2013 20:35
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What is funny is that Captain Bravo missed our last session, and the exact opposite of what he described happened. The person playing the group Psyker is a huge doofus but otherwise a nice enough guy. To set the stage for what he is a like a little, in the first game he played with us(A 13th Age campaign run by Captain Bravo, A Good GM) his character was a Chaotic Neutral half-demon sorcerer named Chaotic, though it was spelled using an apostrophe. He thinks chaos(as a general concept)is about the coolest thing a character can try to be or do. He really wants to play RPGs with us, though he has made no effort to learn anything about the rules, the 40k setting, or finish up his character sheet. He is also not interested in investigation, diplomacy, social or ship combat sections of the game, just the regular old fights. So far, we have played 4 or 5 sessions and he has not used any of his Psyker powers, combat or otherwise. That kind of makes him sound really bad or insufferable, but he isn't. Last time, the rogue trader and his crew were attack in space by partially ethereal Chaos-tainted ships, which used giant space tentacles to grapple the party's ship and commence boarding actions. After the group defeated the boarders and destroyed their ships, I made an offhand comment about how there was nothing of value in the wreckage, just the seeds of chaos taint. So our Psyker says "I want to go get them." He then starts talking about how he wasn't sure what he wanted his character to be, but he has decided he wanted to be a renegade psyker that didn't understand that Chaos was bad. He insisted that his character would not see anything wrong with this course of action. Before I let him go forward, I tried to get across the implications of his actions in the 40k universe, and I wanted to make sure he was willing to accept the consequences. He said he was, and since he was trying to play naive rather than evil, he made no attempt to hide it from the other PCs, so when they found out they fired his chaos seed into the nearest sun. I could have GM vetoed his course of action, but I'm going to try and run with, using it as a catalyst for what is going to happen to them next. I am not a very experienced GM so, since every player but the psyker player reads this thread, there is a good chance that you'll get to hear about how I let the campaign devolved into the players killing each other over heresy.
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Dec 2, 2013 07:49
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Contest Winner posted:I am not a very experienced GM so, since every player but the psyker player reads this thread, there is a good chance that you'll get to hear about how I let the campaign devolved into the players killing each other over heresy. Paranoia40K?
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Dec 2, 2013 20:57
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FredMSloniker posted:Paranoia40K? There's a story somewhere in this thread of exactly that. Mutant powers were flavored as psykers and secret societies were cults or something but the story went well
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Dec 2, 2013 21:30
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Contest Winner posted:I could have GM vetoed his course of action, but I'm going to try and run with, using it as a catalyst for what is going to happen to them next. I am not a very experienced GM so, since every player but the psyker player reads this thread, there is a good chance that you'll get to hear about how I let the campaign devolved into the players killing each other over heresy. "Devolve"? If the players are killing each other over heresy that's a successful 40K campaign
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Dec 2, 2013 22:16
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Dark Heresy stories like that remind me (in a good way) of why I love Black Crusade. I get that the sensation that, in theory, it's meant to be sort of like a game of chicken where everyone is a violent freedom fighter under a fascist regime, and the inevitable panicked jerk of the wheel is to narrowly avoid the crash of becoming an evil demigod. In practice, it's more like a demolition derby, where the players gleefully smash against everything in sight to see who gets to be the biggest, toughest, most evil and super rad demigod.
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Dec 2, 2013 22:54
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One of the things you used to be able to do in Gmail is delete a message if it hadn't been read yet. Which is a neat feature, it lets you update stuff without flooding inboxes. I don't know if it's still possible. So I got invited to a game, and the DM asked me to email him the details for my character. Which is cool, so I wrote something up, he asked for some changes, all good. So I wrote up some changes, sent it back, no big deal. But then, an hour or so later, I decided to redo some of the stuff again, so I went to the message, clicked the arrow next to the message, and chose "Delete this message". Cool, I missed that feature, I didn't know it had been brought back. So I deleted it, and rewrote some of the feats. Later on, I didn't get a reply, and I saw I could still delete the message. That's cool, so I updated the email with a slightly different backstory. Then I realized that the character I made was kinda meh, so I made a different character. So I deleted it, and remade the character. Then I redid the feats Then I redid the background story. So on and so forth. What can I say? I have very little to do, so every once in a while I'd refine my character, until I was satisfied with it. There's always something to tweak. That's when I miss-clicked, and realized I could also delete HIS message. Which is when I realized I hadn't been removing the messages from the email chain entirely, but just removed the message from my inbox. Long story short, I basically sent the DM a million messages, 95% of it covering the exact same things with minor edits, over a period of several days. He probably thinks I'm a stalker now.
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Dec 3, 2013 01:50
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Okay, I have a good story to write up. Apologies if this gets too long. We've recently started doing a Supernatural-esque road trip across America fighting monsters type game, using the Unknown Armies rules. (We're deviating from UA's focus on everything being caused by people and monsters not really being a thing.) For those who don't know, magic in UA is driven by obsession. You're so convinced that a certain way of thinking is the true nature of the universe that sometimes the universe just says "Fine, whatever, have it your way" and lets you do the blatantly impossible. So a dipsomancer gets more magical the drunker they are, a bibliomancer by collecting books, an entropomancer by taking dangerous risks, and so on. Oh, and they're all broken hosed up individuals because they're that obsessed. Don't be an Adept if you want good mental health. That's the intro to the system, now for the cast of characters: Amber-Lynn - Shy, socially awkward, Amber hates change. She still lives in the house she grew up in, and works as an English teacher at her old high school. She's never really left the 9th Ward of New Orleans. She hates for it and self harms, powering her magic - Epideromancy. Marcel - A drifting con artist whose discarded identities are wanted for a string of petty crimes, Marcel's favourite time of year is Halloween with all its masks. He's a personamancer, an Adept based around false identities. Ray - Ray is every cubicle worker you ever met. He hates his bland grey life and bland grey job, and takes every chance he can to go snowboarding, skydiving, mountaineering, or anything else that might feel exciting. His magic? Entropomancy, the power of risks. Jack - Jack went into the infantry straight out of highschool. Jack did not have a good time in the infantry. Jack was medically discharged and still has flashbacks. Jack is afraid to sleep. Jack practices Oneiromancy, making the world more dreamlike by refusing to sleep. Lucy - Lucy says she works in a bar. That's true for this week. She drifts from low payed job to petty crime on a regular basis and does Kleptomancy, the magic of theft. Mercy - Mercy has, on the surface, done the best of them. She's a successful psychotherapist. But she hates her whiny loving patients and wishes she could tell them how pathetic they are. God they make her mad. Which is handy, as she does Irascimancy, the magic of pissing other people off. Alright, there's our cast, now the story: (Prologue bit, agree out of character with the players) The six of them went to high school together in New Orleans, graduated in 1997, and all moved off in their own directions. They were friends in high school but only maintained vague contact afterwards. Ten years later they meet for their school reunion, which happens to fall on Halloween. They enjoy catching up and decide to head out to the bars on Frenchman Street to keep things going. There's this one creepy guy there, dressed up as some kind of burnt-faced zombie, all twisted scar tissue. He keeps following them around, but never says anything. They finally wrap up at around 3am, taking cabs back to Amber's house to sleep off the booze. Except when they arrive the zombie guy is already there, in her front room. He won't leave, a scuffle breaks out, and he goes through the glass coffee table. Between the awful angle his neck is at and the shards of glass through his body he's looking pretty dead. That's when they find out his mask isn't a mask, and his blood is a thick black ooze. (End of prologue bit) That's where the game starts, with them drunkenly freaking out about the dead thing that shouldn't exist on the floor. They decide the best solution is to take it out to the edge of town, dump it in Lake Pontchartrain, and act like none of this ever happened. Of course, they've all been drinking, so the three of them who go to do that get pulled over for drunk driving. Lucy gets arrested after trying to steal the officer's handcuffs from his belt while Jack and Ray speed off in her car (having first backed into the squad car at speed to deter pursuit). Some lucky driving rolls see them escape and Lucy gets taken into custody. In custody, Lucy is held in an interview room for a long while before a tired looking detective comes in. "Do you know Johnny Montfort?" he asks, "how about Zane Brooks? Charnelle Napier? No? They were all at a bar you were out at earlier. How did they look when you left?" "Fine, I guess? It was busy. I think that Zane guy bought me some drinks?" "Hmm. This is how they look now." He slides across photos of some loving awful looking murders. "In fact, everyone who was at that bar looks that way near as I can tell, except you and a handful others. So you can see why I have some questions for you, Ms. Taylor." Meanwhile, Marcel, Mercy and Amber (oblivious to the mass murder) are formulating a plan to bust their friend out of jail using a photocopied FBI ID and a little bit of Marcel's magic. Jack and Ray have just dumped the body in the water, and are wondering what that splashing noise is coming from pretty much exactly where they dropped the body is. (Having apparently forgotten the bit earlier where someone mentioned that these creatures are brought to life by the lake. Maybe the lake wasn't the ideal place to dispose of the body.) So now they have zombies, a mass murder, and a harebrained rescue plan. And that's just the end of the first short session. I love the madness this game produces.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:27
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Exculpatrix posted:Of course, they've all been drinking, so the three of them who go to do that get pulled over for drunk driving. Lucy gets arrested after trying to steal the officer's handcuffs from his belt while Jack and Ray speed off in her car (having first backed into the squad car at speed to deter pursuit). This is my favorite part of gaming. IRL when pulled over after having one too many you sit and look straight forward and try to be as meek as possible while mentally blasting the officer with pleas to let you go with a warning. In gaming? gently caress yeah, steal his handcuffs and back your car into his before roaring off into the night! (This sounds like a great beginning of a game.)
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Dec 3, 2013 23:52
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So I promised trip reports on my 4E Encounters campaign and really need to keep that to one thread, which from now on will be this one. Tonight we did the intro section of Legacy of the Crystal Shard and... Some more stuff besides that. We were about a week or two behind the rest of the Encounters "universe" because we didn't do a game Thanksgiving Week, so there was a lot of ground to cover, or so I led myself to believe. I also got a hold of the packet... Yesterday, rather than two or three weeks ago, so I had some light reading to do. For those who don't know, the "prelude" session is basically: A) Arrive at Bryn Shander and have a fairly basic yeti encounter, designed in the book to be so easy as to be of no consequence. B) Pick up on one or more of three opening plot threads where the PCs have the freedom to choose which of the town's problems to deal with. The party this week was: -Wubwub the Bullywug Wizard -Undead ice wizard (it may end up being a horrible mistake to play ice anything in an Icewind Dale campaign, but he wanted the Mr. Freeze achievement and he got it) -Quap the Rakshasa Lazylord You'll notice that this is (A) not as many people as two weeks ago and (B) three rear echelon motherfuckers, a recipe for encounter disaster. I think the holidays are severely screwing with our Encounters population, and some people got there very late because they had other commitments. But like I said before, it's about 3d4 players every week. Gotta be flexible. But I wasn't going to let that get in the way of a good encounter. Because the initial encounter was just so... Easy, the last group that came in was so well-oiled, and the party voted for Nightmare Difficulty--which specifies five or more dragons get added to the encounters over the course of that game--I added a white dragon. I have the five-model dragon pack that WotC released, and they're all going to get used, drat it.  This is a very beefy solo for level 1s, having additional hp and everything but the typical Monster Vault dragon's secondary initiative sort-of-bullshit attack turn. But then I designed it thinking that there would be six or more players and most of them would be extremely effective in concert. I even planned to throw in extra yetis in the mix if the players had too much of a numerical advantage. I did not plot him out to have three squishies to deal with. So, I reset his hit points at 96 (about 75% of a normal level 1 solo) and made all his attacks deal 75% damage. This didn't turn out to be so necessary, although in hindsight that probably still would have wiped them, making me adjust further. The encounter specifies that the yetis (originally the only monsters supposed to show up) arrive at the behest of a Big Bad working for Auril, appearing from out of a magical snowstorm to attack Bryn Shander en masse with effects very much like teleportation (the PC encounter deals with only a portion of the yeti attack). This is basically what happened just after the PCs arrived at the gate after days of being pretty sure that an evil power is making the weather worse as they get further within Icewind Dale, thanks to Arcana checks: "The guard at the gate is talking to you when he suddenly points at the sky and goes 'AAAAGGGHH.' Everyone can take a free move action and a Perception check to see what is going on." [Most of them make it] "A shadow forms over the guards as they scream helplessly. Then they turn into icicles and blow apart [this got some  looks.] A white dragon lands on their crushed remains. Make another Perception check.""...You see large numbers of ape-like creatures scaling and jumping over the walls of Bryn Shander with brute strength." Then they lost initiative to the dragon, who breathed on the bullywug for 10 points of damage, but who absorbed 5 of it because he took a cold resist feat (Icewind Dale!). This is the point at which it got fun. "Roll a History or Religion check." [Very high success for the warlord] "This is Crovack the Decimator, long considered the harbinger of Auril." It is at this point I discovered that the warlord worships Auril (Icewind Dale!). In addition to that, the wizard is a giant cold gimmick, which would also appeal to Auril. The bullywug doesn't have much to say for himself, but he did just soak most of the dragon's breath weapon. So, in fact, I had the three PCs who would be best at negotiating with a white dragon who was in turn in the service of the goddess of cold. It helps that the PCs are monsters. The characters generally ace their immediate Diplomacy checks, and know to drop to one knee immediately or at least talk a good game--followed by pledging their loyalty to Crovack's cause. Crovack, seeing that he's mistaken these three creatures for good guys, commands them to slay everyone at the gate, breaks it open, and then flies off to wreak havoc elsewhere in the city. Following this, with the help of four nearby yetis, the heroes slaughter all the sellswords that come to protect the sundered gate in a more winnable fight that was more or less arranged on the spot in light of this exciting development. This turn of events means that Crovack assaults the city unhindered. Left to his own devices with a small army of yetis and a band of evil heroes, there is really nothing that anyone in Bryn Shander can do to stop him, and the Big Bad's terrorist attack, originally written to be pointless, turns into a massacre. The heroes watch Crovack destroy the speaker's palace and follow him there, arriving just as he finishes dismembering and devouring Duvessa Shane (who is described as basically an idiot in the book anyway). Almost everyone left standing flees out into the wastes for their lives. You might think that this is now completely off the rails, and not in an unsubtle way. Well, sort of. Pleased but not impressed by their success, Crovack commands the heroes to go to "the dwarven valley" (this is seriously what it is called, so the players have just taken to calling it Dwarfdale out of disdain for FR naming conventions) and bring back a power source that Auril senses there, while Crovack attends to more dragon-y matters. The heroes offer to bring him back dwarf morsels, to which Crovack replies with his catchphrase, "Yesss, gooooood." The group finds Hengar Aesnvaard in chains in the middle of the town, sentenced to death by exposure by the previous rulers and spared death by the yetis. Hengar, who realizes that all is lost in Bryn Shander, laments his fate but mentions that one of the tribes up north has turned to darkness--before realizing that the very same darkness has now consumed the most important town in Icewind Dale. He begs for a quick death, so Wubwub Hannibal Lecters him. The Northlook is one of the only major buildings in town left standing, so the heroes investigate why and find Slim there in the midst of killing a harper agent and gloating over the harpers' abject failure to protect the town. It's obvious that Slim's faction made some kind of separate deal with Crovack, who has gone from being an encounter to a major intermediary NPC. Slim's role remains unclear to the PCs. I roll a random encounter going out of Icewind Dale, so the heroes find a group of brigands at the gate who, rather than waylay them, cheer on their great victory like football fans. The heroes arrive at Dwarfdale with little other trouble, having caused enough chaos to keep most wandering monsters busy eating refugees and other encounters to just not happen at all. They meet with Hammerstone's dwarves first, who are using BLACK ICE equipment. Because the PCs are so equally weird, there is a brief standoff, followed by some trading (the heroes have brought along a wagon full of fishbones), and now the PCs have black ice pendants. The heroes eventually meet up with Stokely Silverstream, who negotiates the fee for the heroes to root out why Hammerstone and other dwarves are going rogue, and stop the dwarven zombie plague. Or at least, he thinks he negotiates a fee, or perhaps negotiates a fee knowing this will come to blows on the way out, we'll find out soon. So now: -We're caught up -There are now only nine towns in Icewind Dale (yup, just like that. gently caress your Salvatore novels) -The PCs have completely blown up the module's suggested timeline of events -The storyline is still progressing in a functional direction and will certainly still involve multi-faction intrigue of some sort as certain MacGuffins come into play -Everyone had a blast and there was only one battle in three hours of play As for the module itself, Despite gleefully making a trainwreck out of the opening session, I rather like what I've read of this module so far. It follows the same basic structure as Murder in Baldur's Gate, where the heroes influence multiple possible plotlines, except the setting is way more ambitious than Baldur's Gate, which was essentially "level 1 human thug burlybrawl." Dungeons have even returned to D&D! Who'd have thunk. The NPCs are not written as unassailable smarter-than-all-the-NPCs-with-extra-plot-armor quest givers, but people who have their own stuff going on. Essentially, the heroes actually drive the plot, they aren't just a cog. I didn't like that I had to consult two books simultaneously to decipher the layout of the Dwarven Valley. That's bad design. Name Change fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 09:27
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SpiritOfLenin posted:Nice to hear our adventures inspire others. Rogue Trader is by far the one I like the most out of the 40k RPGs, sure it is clunky but the theme of "super rich fucks want to get even richer by having space adventures in the grim derp future" owns. Characters like John Silvork the Ork Freeboota Kaptain who is our crew's best friend/worst enemy, Jack Mambo the Slaaneshi Sorceror with a disco-theme and Cryptek space nerd would not be nearly as proper hammy bantering villains in other 40k RPGs, but in RT they fit. Also, for some reason every single Explorator PC ever ends up a Heretek. Literally every single PC Explorator this Rogue Trader dynasty has had (5 so far, the Genetor included - quite obviously using Tyranid genes to improve oneself is heretical even if an Inquisitor tells you to do that) were more or less heretical and the GM has commented that all our Explorators would make great villains for Dark Heresy.
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Dec 5, 2013 22:39
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Had the second session of my SW Saga Edition campaign a week or so ago. Ended up having to put my main storyline idea on the back-burner for that session after a couple of players pulled out last minute. The remaining two players still had a good time though, I think. I ended up coming up with a few minor jobs-around-town for them to do, after they landed on a new planet. Highlights - Agreeing to do some light private-eye work for the owner of a store who thought that his wife was cheating on him; finding out that the wife was ratting him out to Imperial Intelligence as a Rebel sympathizer, and then hiding the guy on their ship in exchange for him giving them a hefty discount in any future stores he might open, once smuggled off planet. I'm thinking this is definitely going to come back to bite the players in the short-term, as their ship is still being repaired and the Imperials will be looking for the shopkeeper. CCTV cameras exist in space, so a polite visit from some stormtroopers might be on the cards. Breaking up a drug deal in an alleyway behind the cantina, only for the Scoundrel PC to pocket the drugs as 'evidence'. The Ewok Scout PC getting trashed on cheap space-vodka in the cantina and then spending a good chunk of the next encounter hiding behind a park bench. Still having fun, and luckily with a few tweaks to the planned encounters from the scrapped storyline (the PCs gained a level through all of these encounters) I should be able to get them back on track with it. We're planning to all convene for our third session next week, with a full party this time.
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Dec 11, 2013 04:33
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A drunk Ewok is the best Ewok by default.
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Dec 11, 2013 08:30
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MissMarple posted:Personally I really enjoyed playing Deathwatch, but that mostly due to the ridiculous stereotypes we played up to. I think that a "standard" approach to a situation would be something like the Space Wolf Devestator ghost riding a Rhino into a battle firing on full auto and laughing with his hair blowing in the wind before becoming some kind of 2 ton cannonball when the Rhino crashed and sent him flying into the enemy. Or our Assault Marine's habit of entering buildings through walls. I think the only time he used doors was to rip them off and throw them at things. I second that Deathwatch is really fun to play, especially if you've got a fun-having GM who basically tells you the more awesome you are, the more bonuses you get while fully indulging in the 80s-action-movie in the grimdark future aspect of it. I just rolled up a Carcharadon Librarian and I am dying to see how he plays out in the campaign. I think I want him to dual-wield Force Swords while frenzying and using psychic powers, especially the Carcharadon one that turns the ground into a shark. I also want to thank this thread, for when I posted an experience that put me on the cat-piss side of the force a few good individuals said the right words that triggered my self-awareness to pull me back from the brink. I'm working hard to quell some of my more pernicious aspects that could, if left unchecked, put me in the cat-piss (like rules-lawyering) as a result of this experience. To this end, I'm going to be a better, more cooperative gamer overall.
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Dec 11, 2013 19:08
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LuiCypher posted:I also want to thank this thread, for when I posted an experience that put me on the cat-piss side of the force a few good individuals said the right words that triggered my self-awareness to pull me back from the brink. So, we're trying to start up a Post-apoc game using Hero System (  ), and I am trying to figure out if this other guy is the cat-pisser, or if it's me. We have a pretty generous points budget, and we're playing as superpowered mutants in the jungles of nuclear Brazil. This dude wants to play as some kind of living avatar of the Postal System, with the power to resist weather conditions and send telepathic messages to anybody as long as he can figure out where they are.Is it right for me to be somewhat up in arms about having to deal with a PC who is, essentially, a weatherproof HAM Radio? This dude tries to pull similar acts in like every game I've seen him play in. "I'm gonna play a character that nobody would think to play! They'll be so amazed by how useful I am! *adjusts bowler hat*" Then, usually, he proceeds to kind of lurk and occasionally do things that range from inconsequential to really suspicious in-character. The GM is pretty new, and none of the rest of us are really on board with having a pro hostage in the party. Also, he's referring to the character as "The Fe-Mail Man" because it's a woman with mail powers, which is kind of horrible in and of itself. I tried to get him to sell me on the concept in the facebook chat devoted to that campaign, but he steadfastly ignored that. 
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Dec 11, 2013 20:21
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deadly_pudding posted:So, we're trying to start up a Post-apoc game using Hero System ( That concept sounds awesome and I have no idea why you're making a big deal out of it. Unless he's weird, creepy, useless, or whatever. Maybe I'm the crazy one though.
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Dec 11, 2013 20:27
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The Fe-Mail Man sounds hilarious, and would probably be a blast to play... in a combat-light game. If you guys are planning to do a lot of fighting, I would maybe suggest a bit of retooling. It's one thing to have inventive powers that can vastly increase diplomatic and skill-based gameplay, it's quite another to have a useless 5th wheel in a game filled with combat.
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Dec 11, 2013 20:29
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Glagha posted:That concept sounds awesome and I have no idea why you're making a big deal out of it. Unless he's weird, creepy, useless, or whatever. Maybe I'm the crazy one though. Seconded. I don't really see anything wrong with that concept, assuming he's not cheating in chargen (I don't know Hero System). Yeah, the PC's name is a little dippy, but I don't think that's what you're worried about. It sounds like the player tends to make high-concept PCs and then doesn't overshadow the rest of the party with them. That's a rare treasure.
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Dec 11, 2013 20:32
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deadly_pudding posted:Is it right for me to be somewhat up in arms about having to deal with a PC who is, essentially, a weatherproof HAM Radio? Unless you're playing some crazy-groggy survival simulation in there, nah. quote:Then, usually, he proceeds to kind of lurk and occasionally do things that range from inconsequential to really suspicious in-character. The GM is pretty new, and none of the rest of us are really on board with having a pro hostage in the party. This, on the other hand, sounds problematic. I don't think it's related to goofy character concepts, but if he has habits that frustrate the group then it's probably a good idea to address them before things get underway. quote:Also, he's referring to the character as "The Fe-Mail Man" because it's a woman with mail powers, which is kind of horrible in and of itself. Speaking as someone who's played the likes of The Uncanny Valley Girl and Doremi Fasola, Bard Extraordinare, this still makes me cringe.
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Dec 11, 2013 20:50
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some loving LIAR posted:Seconded. I don't really see anything wrong with that concept, assuming he's not cheating in chargen (I don't know Hero System). Yeah, the PC's name is a little dippy, but I don't think that's what you're worried about. It sounds like the player tends to make high-concept PCs and then doesn't overshadow the rest of the party with them. That's a rare treasure. I'd normally agree that it's a hilarious treasure, and etc. This guy has kind of a track record, though  My primary concern isn't that he made a communication-oriented character. That poo poo rules and would totally be an asset to our party of post-apocalyptic assholes and one pariah. It's that he tends to make communication-oriented characters, and then proceed to lurk and not really accomplish anything unless somebody tells him to. My experience with him as a negotiator type in D&D was along the lines of DM: "The magistrate seems totally pissed that you guys aren't taking his problems seriously." Him: "........." Somebody Else: "......I... remind him we're just in it for the money?" It's just sort of baffling to me that he plays characters that are sort of high concept, but then doesn't actually try to use them. From that same campaign, the adventure of, "Sorry, guy. There's nothing you can do to convince this hog-tied goblin, whose minions you killed all of, and whose clothes you stole that it would be in his interest to tell you about his king, whom he loves/fears dearly." I dunno. Maybe he has learned from his experiences and I am worried about nothing. 
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Dec 11, 2013 20:56
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I'd go with a cooler name, but yeah, as long as it isn't combat-heavy, I can think of some very interesting uses for such a character. For names, maybe something female-sounding, like почта доставка (Pochta Dostavki) which with my horrible lack of Russian skills and Google Translate, comes from mail delivery.
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Dec 11, 2013 21:02
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deadly_pudding posted:So, we're trying to start up a Post-apoc game using Hero System ( I feel like this is a very hit-or-miss scenario. It could turn out to be extremely awesome if they work with the group and come up with a way to use their powers in an unexpected way that results in a Kool-Aid Man "Oh, yeahhhh!" moment that figuratively knocks the group's socks off and makes everybody feel good about each other. It can also end terribly poorly with said character trying to go off and play their own game separate from the rest of the group and overall dragging everyone down while he goes off on his own little tangents that are fun for him and absolutely no fun for anyone else (including the GM). The gimmick will tire after maybe the first play session. One of my friends had a character like that who basically stole the scene at every possible opportunity by doing something completely batshit crazy and nonsensical. It was funny for the first session, but then when nobody else could accomplish anything of importance without him utterly ruining it, it became very old. The fact that he was completely random about it made it very difficult for the GM to rein in the character/the player. Basically, if he works with you, it can be really cool. If he starts dictating the game, it will be bad. If he does nothing, then it's a wash? If he does nothing, then it's less cat-piss and more just kind of a let-down, in my opinion.
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Dec 11, 2013 21:05
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If you could communicate more than just regular words, but sounds or images, it seems like it could become a huge boon when used creatively and carefully. Make your forces see bigger, make distractions so your allies can sneak better, or lay ambushes.
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Dec 11, 2013 22:42
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So, this DH group I'm part of is chugging along smoothly, so I should tell you guys about our first mission. Which we managed to finish in one night by bypassing half of it due to one of our members loving up. The lineup so far: Guardsman Techpriest Assassin Arbitrator (me) (The Scum comes in later) So, we're sent to this crappy part of the hive we're stationed in because of suspected illegal stuff. Apparently, some guy who lived there was riding home on the subway and just keeled over on the train. He gets brought in and examined, and he's full of illegal implants. So we arrive in the area by train, and after going through his hab we decide to check out the bar nearby, where the dossier said he and his fellow workers drank. This is a good time to mention our Guardsman is a Feral-Worlder, so his character shtick is a combination between a Russian accent (missing articles and all) and some Conan-esque ideals of masculinity. So we roll in, and right off the bat, the Guardsman starts accosting the barkeep about how "We are looking for man who can't die strong!". I try to keep things from getting worse, this goes as well as one would expect, and all hell breaks loose when the barkeep pulls out a hand-cannon and blasts the Guardsman in the leg. Then some gangers in the back flip a table over and pull out some auto-pistols and look ready to fill us with holes. So the Guardsman is trading blows with the barkeep, slashes his leg with his sword but gets a knife in the gut in return. The Assassin makes a shot at the gangers, and misses. I'm next in initiative, so I decide to blast this ganger with my shotgun, which sends him flying into the wall with a wet "splat!". I use this opportunity to make an intimidate check, and convince the gangers and the barkeep to stand down. This is where we hit the "divergence point", because the barkeep, being our only lead so far, couldn't die. So he drops the gun and says that he can help us out, if we don't turn him in. He says that the almshouse on the opposite side of the block has been taking a lot of his chem-addict customers away from him, and that he heard that some people who went in there never came out... He offers us a chunk of cash if we check out the place and kill the chirurgeon in charge of the place. He also gives the everyone a shotgun and a handful of shells, which he had in the back, for some reason. We know this is the best lead we have, so we take it and head over. Now, it's night, so we're sneaking around the block when we see what could be considered "techno-zombies" lurching toward us. We take a few shots at them, the Assassin misses, and nothing much happens, so we run. Turns out these things are the equivalent of a brick wall with legs, with plenty of armor and Toughness. We get to the almshouse, have the Assassin case the place, and there's this huge blast-door on the third floor, with a big pile of corpses stacked outside. There's also this mirror in the main area that has a bio-scanner thing behind it. So we head in and get to the third floor, and poke around the room. We don't have any explosives with us, but the Guardsman had a really stupid, but hilarious idea... We knock on the door. Yup. We all equip our shotguns and the Guardsman hammers on the door. We hide behind the mound of bodies, and a zombie opens the door. Immediately, we stand up and fire at the zombie. It was about 6 feet away from us, and the Assassin missed. So, the chirurgeon is this woman with medical mechadentrites and a ballistic mechadendrite, operating on this guy as we fill the zombies with buckshot. Barely. Roll initiative, and there are 4 more zombies to deal with, along with the chirurgeon. Faced with these odds, the Guardsman says "Wait! I have idea! Guardsmans taught me trick with guns! Little man, you give me gun!" He's speaking with the Assassin, who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with his laspistol. The Assasssin tosses the gun to the guardsman on his turn and takes out his rifle. The Techpriest and I were shooting at the zombies, and on the Guardsman's turn, he makes an Int check, succeeds, and lobs the laspistol into the room. We dive behind the pile again, as the laspistol explodes in a burst of light, blinding the chirurgeon but leaving 3 of the zombies alone. So we mop up the zombies and kill the chirurgeon, luckily, before she hit the big red button and released some bio-weapon plague into the hive.
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Dec 11, 2013 22:44
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Bieeardo posted:Speaking as someone who's played the likes of The Uncanny Valley Girl and Doremi Fasola, Bard Extraordinare, this still makes me cringe.  Those... those are legitimately fantastic, with the only downside being that I somehow wasn't responsible for coming up with them.
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Dec 12, 2013 03:21
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deadly_pudding posted:he tends to make communication-oriented characters, and then proceed to lurk and not really accomplish anything unless somebody tells him to. It could be that it's something he wants to be good at, but doesn't have the real-life communication skills to be good at it? The name is cheesy as hell, but the concept is awesome.
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Dec 12, 2013 20:39
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Just playtested Spirit of 77 with the creator. Jeez. Our group was the rock band Hark, with frontman Clive Wembley and his bassist Jake Forgen, who he picked up in the wrong part of Soho. They were joined by tour manager and secret badass Sheng, and Clive's sister Joanne, an ex-cop who was seeking justice against the street gang that killed her husband. She also wanted to know what secret Clive was keeping from her. Clive had a pet chimp named Algernon. The tour bus broke down in the boonies outside NYC, so the gang walked down to the gas station. On the way, they were offered a ride from drunken rednecks, but Clive tried to impress them with a bit of technical guitaring and got called a human being. At the station, Jake tried to pick up the clerk (until Clive got fed up). The group put in a repair call, and went to the biker bar across the street. Clive made a grand entrance and declared he was doing a secret show. Unfortunately, Hark only knew two patriotic songs, so they played them over and over until the crowd threw bottles at them. Joanne was hit on by rednecks, but they backed off when she showed them her magnum pistol. Jake, ever livacious, went across the street, called the club, and had the waitress Lurleen meet him outside - she was going to the Big Concert! She agreed, but only if they'd stop by the trailer park and pick up her kid. As she packed up her belongings, Clive cornered Jake behind the trailer. He kissed Jake and told him to stop being a loving flirt with everyone. For his part, Clive agreed to let Lurleen go after the concert - he was just going after a bit of fun, after all! Clive rewrote his relationship from "I'm #1 and Jake needs to know it" to "Jake can always get what he wants from me. The group reached New York, but got stuck in traffic and demured to the subway. They reached a completely packed train, but Clive made a huge speech about Hark, and got the crowd pumped, cheering along, and squeezing room for the gang. Jake pissed off Clive by telling him that all the people squeezed in on him reminded him of London. And when Clive wiped his eyes, Lurleen was standing out on the platform with Algernon. And Jake had -her- kid. --- Clive immediately told Algernon to meet him at the next station, and deployed his fanbase to get the chimp back. He and Jake shared a beer and talked about the upcoming show...they were a good team. But still, they could always gently caress things up if they weren't on the same page. Meanwhile, Clive avoided Joanne's probing questions. --- When Algernon arrived on the next train, he and the band headed over to the arena. The show was a complete success (with a 11 and a 13 out of 10). Record setting, catchphrase making, once-in-a-lifetime kind of poo poo. The monkey and the kid danced. Clive sung about subways and western bars. It was 'beyond believable.' Backstage, Jake returned Lurleen's son and told her that she couldn't stay with the tour, not after stealing Algernon. He promised loosely to connect her in Hollywood and gave her a few hundred bucks to leave. Besides, Clive had an interesting idea... They were going to find the people who killed Joanne's family. Clive left Algernon with the roadies and took the limo. The group went over to Queens, where the Badds had a porno theater and apartment complex. A plan was hatched; Jake would go in as a decoy, Clive would pretend to sell drugs, and they'd gut everyone who needed to be gutted. The gutting went well. The distraction did not. The boys in the band talked their way into the building, and Sheng killed the doormen. Joanne made short work of the defenders, blowing their heads off. Clive mashed his guitar. Every THWUUUUNG reminded Joanne of her tormentors faces on that tragic day, and she killed them all. Except one, of course. Jake had gone ahead and seduced Billy, the head of the gang, even converting him to the band's side. While Joanna focused on whether or not Billy was responsible, Clive shattered his guitar over Billy's head. Clive began screaming at Jake for breaking his loving heart, while Jake sputtered that he did it for the band, it was all for the band, that he did it in Clive's best interest. Clive told his sister to kill Billy, and she did. He threw off his drug filled, fancy jacket and stormed down to the limo as sirens filled the air. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Sep 4, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2013 06:54
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Dec 15, 2013 08:12
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50 Foot Ant posted:The next campaign promises to be very fun. Your friends must have played a LOT of tabletop games to all agree to something THAT severe.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:26
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You were running the low-healing campaign with the church-hating witch and all that, right? Is... is Sir Hiss okay?
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Dec 16, 2013 01:03
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Dec 16, 2013 10:22
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I'm in the process of writing up some current campaign logs and I happened across a write up of a terrible experience I had a few years ago. We were tasked with opening a door in the sewers, which had a large sigil inscribed on it that matched the cover of a magical journal we had been given describing cult activities in the sewer. Our barbarian tries to open the door, but it appears to be trapped, so he gets acid splashed. Not too bad, we just have to be careful. The following exchange occurs. (I’m playing a rogue/sorcerer)  Barbarian DM me : I bet the journal opens the door! I hold the journal up and place it in the center of the sigil on the door. : The door makes some clicking noises but does not open. The trap retriggers, spitting acid. Take 4 damage. : I want to find out where the acid is coming from so I can figure out how to safely disable the trap. Can I roll spot or search? : No, the acid vents are extremely well hidden. : Ok... I take the wizard's quarterstaff and poke the door. : Acid flies out of the ceiling and strikes you, take 2 points of damage. : Ow, so I should have seen where it’s coming from. I cast Knock and touch the door, taking care to avoid the acid vents. : The door does nothing. The vents you observed do not open but other hidden ones on the floor do, take 3 points of damage. : The hell? OK, so I back up 15 feet and throw a stone at the door. : Vents on the door spray acid, take 2 damage. : So I just can't interact with the door at all without triggering the trap? : Yeah.At this point I basically gave up on the door and our barbarian figured out how to open it with the magical journal after about 10 different failures (and subsequent acid splashes) by finally describing the precise hand placement on the journal and door that the DM had in mind. That was the last session I ever played with that DM.
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Dec 17, 2013 09:39
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Ugh. I hate GMs who do that. That's not fun - that's just asking to get pelted with dice.
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Dec 17, 2013 21:03
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I agree but I have to admit, the image of a trap that has vents just opening up all over the place almost takes it back around to Tex Avery style slapstick.
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Dec 17, 2013 21:13
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I'll share the magical electric floor trap chamber I used in my last Encounters game. I hope this will make any sense in this format, but we'll see. The basic layout of the room was something like this (each letter being a five-foot square on the ground): .000. ..0.. ..V.. ..0.. ..V.. ..0.. ..V.. ..0.. .000. .---. .X00. .XXP. .000. .0XX. .XXX. .000. I am going off memory of what the tile setup was, with the characters starting at the south end and having to work their way through. . is wall/stone. 0 is a safe tile. X is an electrified tile. Step on a tile and you take 1d6 electrical damage, while people adjacent to you take 1d4 or something to that effect. P reverses the polarity of all tiles, so safe tiles become electrified and vice versa. V is a swinging axe trap, much in the style of Skyrim where it's constantly going and impossible not to see. To time your way through without getting hit, you make a Dungeoneering check of DC 15 or the axe trap makes a 1d6 damage attack that is unlikely to miss you, and pushes you back into a safe square. For the record, the squares adjacent to the axe trap cannot be electrified. --- is a trip wire that sets off the incendiary glue explosive that is gently lathered on the walls, difficult to see, and difficult to identify (think of the sugary coating on certain cereals). Each tile is marked with a difficult-to-see and difficult-to-translate dwarven rune that can be read either with Dwarven language or the Arcana skill This is a monster party so no dwarf language, but I'm a firm believer in treating the D&D language system in the same way Romance languages work, so if you speak something close to the exact language you can get a general idea of what someone else is saying or writing. Because there are only three types of runes, and it will become obvious after a couple of trial runs as to which does what, this is not too much of a barrier. Essentially, once the characters work out that there are magical runes on the floor, they will work out that at worst they have to make some easy Athletics checks to jump. The stuff right before the smaller hallway is the interesting part. The party is: An orc fighter An undead wizard A thri-kreen monk A rakshasa warlord (lazylord) They solve the riddle to open the south door into the trap chamber, the door opens, and the characters try to perceive what's going on in this very empty dungeon room. They bomb their Perception checks but hear the axes up ahead, so it's obvious they're in the "trap room." The orc player, who prides himself on being a motherfucking orc, just strides right the gently caress on in. (I'm really proud of him, because he did this entire session willingly without a weapon. A crazy dwarf demanded they not take their weapons into the dungeon, and the characters actually listened to him instead of killing him (which they were free to do). The only character really bothered by this would be the fighter, considering his friends don't really use weapons at all. He still had a barbed shield, but that's not much compared to a magical axe. He did not whine even once.) The orc steps on the first tile down the middle, and ignores the first bit of electrical damage because he's an orc. He hits the second and realizes he has to go back, essentially. Pretty quickly, the characters work out that there are concealed runes on the tiles and there's a translucent, hardened substance on the walls. The wizard player, who has a wheely sled, has no time for any of this poo poo. Looking annoyed, he decides he's going to ride through the room on the right side. You can of course survive 4d6 fire and electrical damage at level 1 when you sled over two electrified tiles, reverse the polarity, and then cause the room to explode. I could have been meaner, but the riddle-sealed door at the north end has a solo monster waiting behind it and I don't want to senselessly murder everyone because one player was extremely dumb. Now the wizard has reversed the polarity, so it becomes a slightly more complicated matter to determine which tiles are safe, but the players get through it. The orc gets to the north side first after owning most of his Dungeoneering checks Indiana Jones-style. He then sees that the next door has another riddle and there are two switches. He can't read it at all, but he can pull switches. The first riddle indicates which switch to pull to change the runes on the door into another riddle, and which to pull if you want to get immolated again. The orc, oblivious, immediately pulls the correct switch by random chance.
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Dec 18, 2013 00:37
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50 Foot Ant posted:smashing a campaign world flat I gotta admit, you guys are pretty brave for getting medieval (primordial?) on your campaign world like that. I'd been playing Traveller for something like ten years when MegaTraveller came out that started a bunch of upheaval in my neat little Third Imperium but I could live with it. But then Traveller:The New Era shows up and utterly annihilates the entire world. I admit it was rough going from Bruce Wayne in his space yacht and his tales of daring-do to a bunch of post-apocalyptic survivors fighting completely insane sentient robots with sicks and rocks. I like how you guys do a summary recap at the end of the campaign where it sounds like you talk about what you want to do next and what you'd like to see happen. I sorta sprung the TNE stuff on my players and it didn't go over well, to the point when I was relieved when they determined that warping through space could also warp them through time (Thanks Einstein!) allowing for a huge do-over for the campaign. Most of our campaigns typically start with one of us saying "hey I want to play X in the style of Y. Interested? Roll up characters and let's go." Which basically means that the players show up because the GM had a great idea in a vacuum and sometimes it goes wrong. After nearly three decades of gaming, I never thought to sit down and collectively discuss ideas for the next arc.
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Dec 18, 2013 01:21
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