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Just ran a session a little while ago. My first time GMing in quite some time, this time using Savage Worlds. The only prep I had was to have a few basic ideas of what I wanted to happen, and to come up with stats for several encounters. I gave them the basic scenario (these are the countries that are important here, this is how they relate to the backstories you gave me, this is who has hired you). They're mostly first-time players, so I made sure they didn't feel too overwhelmed with detail or the need to come up with stuff. I'll have them build up more world as we go along. Started off with a quick bar brawl to set the mood, and give them a non-lethal introduction to how combat works in Savage Worlds. They began with basic "I smack him with a beer mug" attacks, before getting more into how to do fancy maneuvers like knock someone over the bar. If I didn't know a particular rule, I winged it, letting them know that the ruling might change later on. As the fight went on, I started introducing more advanced concepts like gang-up bonuses, wild attacks, and other bits that make SW combat more flexible. I moved them onto a hunt into the sewers, where I had them fight undead, then elves. By the time the elves came, they started working tactically, getting the drop on their victims, using terrain to get cover from ranged attacks, and maneuvering to prevent gang-up bonuses while getting them themselves. One of the last elves was shield-bashed so hard his shattered corpse was knocked into the guy behind him, shaking him. I run it again on Sunday. I have no idea what's happening, except that they're traveling into the jungle to talk to some Lizard Men. I may have more elves attack them, or I might introduce some human and dwarf knights of the Iron Duchy. I stumbled a lot. I had to check notes for names, I kept using the same voice for multiple NPCs, and I was kind of disorganized. But I kept the game moving, and the players didn't mind my mistakes. Everyone had fun, and everyone is excited for next week. This is probably the best session I've ever run in terms of everyone enjoying themselves. So yeah, keep things loose and let your players inject their own ideas into the game. It really does work.
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Dec 26, 2013 06:02
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petrol blue posted:Dear god, this. For years, I wanted to run a game, and got obsessed with getting every last detail of the world right before starting. [Snip] 'but they've got to go there, or they won't see the awesome set-piece I made for them' (which I reckon is the root cause of railroading, but that's just my theory, etc.) Coming back to this, I totally was That DM in my first campaign. One dude who I added to the group partway through told me, "it sounds like you just want to tell a story"; I also had friends outside of the group telling me I should make it into a movie script or video game. I realized I was trying to steer the players towards acting out the plot I had formed in my head. That's cool and all but it's railroady as gently caress and only works if players agree to it off the bat (and I didn't figure out what I ACTUALLY wanted to do with the campaign until I was right in the middle of it.) I find some GMs are like that, where they have an agenda or "cool idea" they wanna run with, but tabletop gaming/cooperative storytelling really isn't the medium for it. Unless you get EXACTLY the perfect group of players around the table, who are digging what you're trying to do; in my experience it's more often a mixed bag of perfect strangers, so odds of that working out are pretty low. Do most people in this thread just get "people I already hang out with" together and decide to play an elfgame? For me it's usually about picking a game/system you want to play/run and then finding the people who want to play it.
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Dec 26, 2013 07:16
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P.d0t posted:Do most people in this thread just get "people I already hang out with" together and decide to play an elfgame? For me it's usually about picking a game/system you want to play/run and then finding the people who want to play it. If you want to do an ultra-serious <whatever> sim and get way into it, I'd find like-minded people over meetup or something similar. If you just want to have fun, round up 2-5 cool and funny friends and convince them to give roleplaying a shot. Most of the horror stories I've heard happened when playing with a stranger.
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Dec 26, 2013 07:45
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If you really have a cool setpiece or creature make it ubiquitous rather than forcing the party to find the lost king of-is there anymore beer? For instance I had an idea for a fight on the back of a giant monster. I couldn't really steer the party towards a dungeon because they don't like the traditional Forbidden Cave Deep In The Forest dungeons. So I made it a part of the setting where Necromancers are accepted because hollowed out animated corpses are good for transportation. I get to stage my fight whenever because zombie behemoths are about as exotic as a 747 and the party can have a necromancer without everybody wondering why heroes are hanging out with this creep.
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Dec 26, 2013 09:18
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Welp, I know what I'm ordering next month. This looks incredible.
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Dec 26, 2013 13:44
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Does anyone have any hints on running GHOST/ECHO? I'm planning on using it as a way to freeform create my setting and PCs through play to later convert to a FATE or FAE game. I've got some rough guidelines about theme and what I'm looking for players to work with so that we don't wind up totally random, but any help running this sorta thing would be appreciated! My biggest worry is letting player-ran ideas overwhelm everything and create a big fat over-complicated mess. What I'm going for is "Supernatural Gothic Horror Victorian Cyberpunk Crime Thriller" and I'm not sure what would come out of that and the GHOST/ECHO PDF.
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Dec 27, 2013 07:01
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With the game I'm DM'ing, I started out with a beginning, middle and end. As the story expanded and I got a feel for how the characters would react to situations, I was able to flesh out the story a bit more. My PCs are currently building up to the final fight with a demi-god. I have the local magistrate as an NPC who is on their side, but has never fought with them - mostly because I don't want to DMPC this poo poo. My party consists of two players and they're going to be rushing a cave to fight a demi god. This is specifically a god of chaotic evil against my lawful good party. Depending on the rolls, this could go south for them in a hurry. I can't think of a convincing way to have the Magistrate show up without it seeming contrived. The absolute last thing I want is for this NPC to rush in and save the day, only to provide an assist if it's needed.
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Dec 28, 2013 21:52
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Treat him as a resource. Have him organize whatever the party lacks: a supply line, patriotic support, clearances, prayer, a way to keep the other demigods out of it...
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Dec 28, 2013 22:02
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My approach with fights is that I don't want a TPK and my players don't want a TPK, so the stakes on a fight should always be something other than 'will there be a TPK?'. So generally it's a good plan for enemies to have goals other than 'kill all the players'. If the PCs are hitting this guy where he lives then presumably he's on the back foot: he doesn't want to wipe them to a man because he's got no idea if they have backup on the way. So presumably your demigod's goal is escape, not slaughter: he'll kill people if they're stopping him getting away, but he doesn't have the time to finish them properly. So if he wins he legs it -- and the players have to recover from their injuries and deal with the fact that their enemy now knows who they are and how they fight.
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Dec 29, 2013 03:54
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I have a hard time finding something that my characters actually care about to put at stake, I need some way of getting them more engaged I suppose.
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Dec 29, 2013 07:40
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Well, what's on their character sheet? Who do they talk to? Who do they ignore? If you're stuck, have your players do their homework. Have them do a 3x3: Three people their characters love/need/look up to, 3 that they betray/disrespect/feel responsibility for, and three people who they can't kill but make their lives hell. Encourage them to share people. If you want a really spicy game, have them combine across rows; the wizard's wife makes the druid's life hell. The ranger looks up to Sir Wensblee, who the Elven Rogue taught everything he knows (and did half the stuff Wensblee's credited for).
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Dec 29, 2013 09:29
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socialsecurity posted:I have a hard time finding something that my characters actually care about to put at stake, I need some way of getting them more engaged I suppose. Some players are really adept at giving zero fucks. I try my best to let them tell me what they care about, by letting them lead the story. It has had a greater success rate than my traditional method (set up a setting or established relationships) but sometimes there are players who still don't care precisely because they never want to feel threatened by anything.
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Dec 29, 2013 09:29
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socialsecurity posted:I have a hard time finding something that my characters actually care about to put at stake, I need some way of getting them more engaged I suppose. Ask them questions about their character sheet. Who taught them how to be a Paladin? What do they think of them? If their character acts a particular way, why is that? Where do they get their moral compass from? What is their relationship with their god? Where did they grow up? What are their goals?
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Dec 29, 2013 11:04
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There's always the old standby of someone nicking their loot. And if they use it against the party, that should really get them invested in revenge. It's hardly original, but I can't see it failing.
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Dec 29, 2013 13:49
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Mendrian posted:Some players are really adept at giving zero fucks. I try my best to let them tell me what they care about, by letting them lead the story. It has had a greater success rate than my traditional method (set up a setting or established relationships) but sometimes there are players who still don't care precisely because they never want to feel threatened by anything. I had a really good set of players around me. We were doing a one off game on Halloween and I came up with the idea to let players roll percentile to see how well they knew someone else's character. It was really fun to see how some of them made it fit. Especially the one who rolled %92 and decided that his Bard used to date the Fighter. Through the night they'd make allusions to the fact that the relationship ended... badly.
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Dec 29, 2013 14:53
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Does anyone here have advice for GMing an extremely rules-light narrative based game? Combat and danger will play a pretty big role in the game itself since those are the kinds of games that my group likes best, but the system has an extremely simple framework for it; kind of Fate style where you defend against incoming attacks and the successes determine the results of both participants actions. I've mostly played relatively crunchy games in the past, so whats to keep combat from becoming round after round of "I try to chop off his head/stab his heart/etc." and essentially being rocket tag with the PC's either one shotting every enemy or wasting a round accomplishing nothing? My first thought on this is to make it so that extremely decisive blows like that are harder to pull off/take more skill to do reliably, and if you try it and fail the target will be expecting it if you try it again on the next round so it would make sense to try and vary your attacks (round 1: "I chop down toward his neck trying to take him where his armor is weak at the joint" and if that fails, on round 2: "I feint high again with my sword but kick him hard in the knee while he's distracted") I don't know if that actually works as a solution though...
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Jan 4, 2014 22:55
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Bob Quixote posted:Does anyone here have advice for GMing an extremely rules-light narrative based game? Read Dungeon World, steal as appropriate. Don't be afraid to throw it to the group when you can't think of complications. Have successes in important fights be interim, but significant; you cut him so he's losing blood, wear him down so he's a bit puffed, break a rib so he's reacting more slowly.
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Jan 5, 2014 09:14
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sebmojo posted:Read Dungeon World, steal as appropriate. Don't be afraid to throw it to the group when you can't think of complications. Have successes in important fights be interim, but significant; you cut him so he's losing blood, wear him down so he's a bit puffed, break a rib so he's reacting more slowly. I'll try to see if anyone has a copy of it to borrow since I'm too broke for new rule books at the moment, but the idea of complications sounds good. Getting more descriptive in combat seems like it would be one of the advantages of moving further from a pure HP system to something a bit more open. Does this hold true the other way though? Should players have to face broken bones or severe maiming if things go south in the fight? I suppose its something that would have to be discussed beforehand to make sure that we're all on the same page regarding the tone of the game, but I think "you've lost your eye" has a better ring to it than "you took 4 damage", even if the setting would allow for them to regrow/replace said eye.
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Jan 6, 2014 01:34
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Bob Quixote posted:I'll try to see if anyone has a copy of it to borrow since I'm too broke for new rule books at the moment, but the idea of complications sounds good. Getting more descriptive in combat seems like it would be one of the advantages of moving further from a pure HP system to something a bit more open. You could do something like the Consequences in FATE. You mitigate your damage, basically, by taking Consequences, which are more serious wounds. However, you only have a certain number of slots for consequences. So, you might survive a massive hazard by accepting a severe consequence (Broken Arm), but the next time it happens you're dead. It's kind of a system of saying, "welp, you could have died there, but instead..."
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Jan 6, 2014 01:49
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deadly_pudding posted:You could do something like the Consequences in FATE. You mitigate your damage, basically, by taking Consequences, which are more serious wounds. However, you only have a certain number of slots for consequences. So, you might survive a massive hazard by accepting a severe consequence (Broken Arm), but the next time it happens you're dead. It's kind of a system of saying, "welp, you could have died there, but instead..." I was gonna put in a pool of Luck tokens that players could use for auto-success or to mitigate Death as well, but the tokens were going to be a limited resource for the group to share and you had to get another player to agree to your use of a point just to make sure that one person wouldn't end up spending all of them. The more I think about it the more I think the idea of having Consequences/messy complications be the results from combat would be a good idea. Sure, it might suck at first to have your character lose a hand or get a severe burn or something, but it would probably make the situation more easy to visualize. Plus, it would give the character some distinguishing features and might actually make them more endearing to their player if they think that they are in actual danger beyond HP loss.
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Jan 6, 2014 02:09
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So, here's a simple question; how do you deal with mechanical screw ups? The PCs just lost a fight against a gang of orcs, which lead to them being captured and stripped of their possessions. Now, the fight was close, and could've gone both ways, but they were narrowly defeated. However, 15 minutes after ending the game, I realize that I screwed up; an orc in armor moves 20 feet per round, not 30 feet. Whoops. That probably would've been enough to give the PCs another turn's worth of attacks, and would've probably enabled their victory. How do you deal this kind of screwup? I haven't told the players about this (and probably won't) but how should I deal with this kind of screw-up, especially going forward? Do the orcs revert to having a speed of 20 feet and risk having the players see the screw-up, accusing me of cheating? Should I even own up to having screwed up? Hell, looking back, there are a number of rules I overlooked, that probably would've made the PCs stand more of a chance. But keeping track of all that, all while managing the stats of four different enemy types in a complicated battle, while keeping things flowing...is hard. When push came to shove, my first instinct was often "just wing it, the players won't notice". Nagna Zul fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 05:46
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That Orc was especially good at moving, he trained every day from birth to move faster in that armor, perhaps they should have done the right skill check to examine his calves.
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Jan 6, 2014 05:57
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Nagna Zul posted:So, here's a simple question; how do you deal with mechanical screw ups? Orcs in your world are bigger and tougher than by-the-book orcs. They move at 20 ft per round, because their armor was really heavy, because they don't have access to Steel like the rest of the civilized races, so they make do with a material that isn't quite as good. Also, they took a level in a prestige class that allows them to ignore some (but not all!) of the rules that they were ignoring. Don't sweat it. If the PCs narrowly lost, you were doing it right, because combat balance in Pathfinder or 3.5, which I'm assuming you're using, tell me if I'm wrong, is difficult. Were the players having fun and carefully surveying the field for tactical advantages? Were you playing the NPCs to the hilt, given your knowledge of the rules? Often, and almost always "just wing it, the players won't notice" is just what you should be doing, but in a tactical encounter bit in a system like 3.5, it's important to note them, and stay as on-the-level as you can. Write down or make a note of any fiddly rules you're going to forget. If you forget them, don't go back and reset or anything, just move on. Also, give them back their stuff and let them revenge themselves upon these felons fairly quickly, losing your stuff is the worst in Pathfinder.
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Jan 6, 2014 06:00
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None of the characters are dead, so it's not a huge deal. If they had died, I'd consider a retcon. In this case... See, I've told my players that I will let my rulings stand, for the most part. If I screw up, we'll go back to the original rule later on (or not, if the new way's more fun). The most important thing is to keep the game moving. Don't redo the whole fight, or reverse it. Just consider letting them know that in the future, orcs won't be moving quite that fast in armor. Unless you think that having them that bit harder to fight helps the game along.
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Jan 6, 2014 06:06
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Nagna Zul posted:However, 15 minutes after ending the game, I realize that I screwed up; an orc in armor moves 30 feet per round, not 20 feet. Whoops. That probably would've been enough to give the PCs another turn's worth of attacks, and would've probably enabled their victory. Stop playing 3.x/PF. That will solve most of these problems. Nagna Zul posted:How do you deal this kind of screwup? I haven't told the players about this (and probably won't) but how should I deal with this kind of screw-up, especially going forward? Do the orcs revert to having a speed of 20 feet and risk having the players see the screw-up, accusing me of cheating? Should I even own up to having screwed up? Absolutely tell them you screwed up. I'd offer to retcon the whole battle and say "PCs win" or give the players the option to roll with the current outcome, if they think that will lead to more interesting things. Make sure to do this soon enough that you have time to prep for whatever they choose.
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Jan 6, 2014 06:06
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P.d0t posted:I think you got the numbers backwards here. Yeah, I did. You get the point, anyways. Not playing 3.5 would probably lead to many, many more screwups of this caliber. I have a decent grasp of the 3.5 rules, but I'm not familiar with any other ruleset. P.d0t posted:Absolutely tell them you screwed up. I'd offer to retcon the whole battle and say "PCs win" or give the players the option to roll with the current outcome, if they think that will lead to more interesting things. Make sure to do this soon enough that you have time to prep for whatever they choose. No offense, but that sounds like a terrible idea. "Yeah, so that really intense battle that we spent three hours on that ended in this specific way? Turns out that never happened. The orcs keeled over and died, and you won. Killed every single one of them." It wasn't a TPK; no one died other than some expendable animal companions, which have been dying left and right since the beginning of the campaign anyways. No PCs died, they were captured, leveled up from all the XP and they'll start the next adventure imprisoned and need to figure a way out; it should make a good story. At this point, I'm pretty convinced "just run with it and pretend nothing wrong happened" is the right idea. If the players ask questions, just say that those orcs had the "Quick" trait, or a level of barbarian, or whatever. Rewinding time just feels terrible, especially since I had to do it twice in that session to cover some screw ups.
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Jan 6, 2014 06:37
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Nagna Zul posted:No offense, but that sounds like a terrible idea. Right, the way YOU explain it DOES sound like a terrible idea. All I'm suggesting is tell them what you told us: I made a minor screw up that I figure cost you a round of actions, which probably would have won you the fight. If the players agree with that assessment, you can all agree that's how it happened, or go with the original ending. Letting it slide is a perfectly fine way to go. I'm just saying don't get caught up with any simulationist bullshit and feel free to handwave from time to time.
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Jan 6, 2014 07:22
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Bob Quixote posted:I'll try to see if anyone has a copy of it to borrow since I'm too broke for new rule books at the moment It's CC: http://book.dwgazetteer.com/
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Jan 6, 2014 09:22
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I would say to admit your mistake and apologize, but don't retcon -- instead, go relatively easy on their attempts to win their possessions back. In a tactics-heavy system you need to make it clear you're playing fair by the PCs. Also, as much as I agree that there are better systems out there, 'don't use 3.5' is pretty obnoxious advice. It makes us sound like those insufferable IT nerds who answer every question with 'well that's what you get for using MICRO$$$OFT' 
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Jan 6, 2014 10:28
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Being captured and having to escape without all their usual tools can be a very good time, sounds like things ended well. I had an experimental game with a guy, we wanted to try a system out, and literally the entire thing was just "You wake up mostly naked in a cave, you tell me how you got here. Okay, GET OUT." It was an absolute blast. I guess what I'm saying is don't retcon a good thing. (For that matter, don't retcon a bad thing, either.) Rules are meant to be broken, and as the DM, strategically breaking the rules to make a good time is like your number one job. So you did it accidentally this time, oh well. Remember, "fail forward." e: wow, typing with a two year old crawling over you is hard Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 16:15
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Nagna Zul posted:At this point, I'm pretty convinced "just run with it and pretend nothing wrong happened" is the right idea. If the players ask questions, just say that those orcs had the "Quick" trait, or a level of barbarian, or whatever. Please don't do this. Just fess up and tell them what you did wrong, and how you will use that rule in the future. There are several reasons for not lying to your players about poo poo like this, first and foremost being that it is unfair to your players. They do trust you with the rules after all. Now if they go apeshit and demand a retcon of that whole combat you kindly tell them to gently caress off. But don't treat them like children who can't handle someone messing up a little.
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Jan 6, 2014 16:35
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Yeah, it's definitely okay (and good) to have-wave mistakes. Better that than covering them up. Just say, "Yeah, I realized after the fact that they were moving at the wrong speed. So anyhow, you're all in cages..."
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Jan 6, 2014 16:37
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Whybird posted:Also, as much as I agree that there are better systems out there, 'don't use 3.5' is pretty obnoxious advice. It makes us sound like those insufferable IT nerds who answer every question with 'well that's what you get for using MICRO$$$OFT' You're right, I was obnoxious. I guess my real point was don't get hung up on always justifying everything your monsters do within the feat/class/equipment/spell/whatever else rules. 3.X lends itself to the mentality that as a DM, you have to build monsters exactly as PCs, with every stat and grapple modifier and whatever thrown in and it just doesn't seem helpful, even/especially in a case like this; someone well-versed in the system still slips up. "These orcs move faster than usual because I want the fight to be challenging" is fine enough without trying to justify it as a feat or a class feature that you'd retcon them into having. Being upfront about your monster-building to your players is more important than the mechanical reasons your monsters operate the way they do. Unless your players are rules lawyers who want to see where in the book it says orcs can do that, but 
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Jan 6, 2014 19:34
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Regarding screwing up on the rules: If you feel that it had a significant enough impact on the game for you to feel guilty about it, then totally talk to the players. It's an experience that can possibly make it cooler for everybody- tell them they were captured by like the Orc equivalent of the SWAT Team, and that they can deprive the orcish forces of one of their best assets if they can take those guys out during the escape. It's a pretty good setup. The rogue, or ranger, or whoever gets a moment to shine by getting out of the shackles and stealing back everybody's stuff, and then you just have to listen to the players trying to make plans and play off of that. If they plan like they're gonna stab the orcs in their sleep, let them do that, with maybe a wrinkle where a couple of them were out taking a piss. If they plan like they're gonna poison the orcs' grog, let the druid find some poison weeds in some neglected corner of the camp. If the barbarian wants to challenge the camp leader to a pro wrestling showdown in a ring of fire to cripple that guy and also enemy morale, that is awesome.
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Jan 6, 2014 21:19
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P.d0t posted:Unless your players are rules lawyers who want to see where in the book it says orcs can do that, but ... Then you might as well be playing 4e!
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Jan 6, 2014 22:30
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If that's the case, it's their fault for not mentioning it at the time it happened!
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Jan 6, 2014 22:40
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...
Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2014 22:42
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Here's why I recommend telling them. Eventually, you're going to screw up in a way that's going to be obvious to them. Not just with the stats of the orcs, but with a more general rule. Like, maybe you forget that bonus hitpoints from constitution increases aren't lost first. And if you try to hide your mistakes from them, they're going to start to question your rulings more. Put your cards on the table now, and they're going to trust you more later. "I made a mistake" is almost always more tolerable than "I made a mistake and I hid it from you." Here's why I recommend not retconning it. Things like that might happen in the middle of a fight. Maybe you're not 100% sure on a ruling, and you and your players have the urge to stop, pull the book out, and look it up. That slows play down far too much. Make a snap ruling. If you were wrong, you can correct it later. The important thing is to keep the game moving. Unless there's a major reason to retcon (character death, complete derailment of the adventure), it's generally best to just go with the flow. Let them know it applies when you make mistakes in their favor as well.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:38
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There's always just bluffing and saying, "Huh, I guess those orcs did move a little too fast. That's really weird  ," and say nothing more. Throws em through a loop and makes you look clever as well, because now they think it's not a mistake but a plot point.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:25
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P.d0t posted:I guess my real point was don't get hung up on always justifying everything your monsters do within the feat/class/equipment/spell/whatever else rules. 3.X lends itself to the mentality that as a DM, you have to build monsters exactly as PCs, with every stat and grapple modifier and whatever thrown in and it just doesn't seem helpful, even/especially in a case like this; someone well-versed in the system still slips up. Oh, I absolutely agree with you there. If Nagna Zul's problem had been "I keep on slipping up with the rules and it's too confusing" then dropping 3.X and giving some other systems a shot would have been my first recommendation too  But while 3.X certainly makes it easier, it isn't the only system where you can slip up on the mechanics and hit players too hard. Hell, I managed it in my second Dungeon World session.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:44
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