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I only have it on my computer, and you should trust me when I say that it would be very underwhelming to view if your character did not appear in it. I guess a more useful link to give would be for the Windows Movie Maker(make sure not to deselect the crap you don't want to install). I know that it will make people who have done any video editing squirm, but if you just want to present a series of pictures with nice transition effects and a soundtrack it doesn't get any simpler.
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Mar 4, 2014 23:51
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My players are pretty hesitant with this whole collaborative setting thing I'm trying to get them to do. So I've given them homework: in no more than a session or two, you'll arrive in a region where we'll spend the rest of the campaign. Everyone please come up with the reason your character is going there. If you give me a place to go with it and draw it on the map, that's a gold star for you right there. The map in question being a blank sheet right now. I figure that's gonna give me five huge plot points and either I come up with some long-term story that combines them ("the wizard is looking for her mentor and the cleric has heard rumours about the walking dead? oh ho ho ho!") or we just run through five adventures where everyone gets the spotlight in turn. Either way works for me. Plan B is to just break out some official adventure modules. That would also work for me.
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Mar 5, 2014 20:34
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It's a tricky one to 'solve' - homework sucks for players who just want to turn up and game, doing it pre-session rewards people who're good at coming up with stuff fast, and GM fiat cuts the players out entirely. Your approach seems pretty reasonable, though - it gives everyone who cares enough to be invested a chance to come up with reasons in their own time, and anyone who just wants to roll dice and splat mobs can claim the dog ate it. Personally, I'd try to give everyone a 'connection back home', so they can have some plot focused on them later if they want, but there's only so far you can bend over backwards for them if they don't help. e: Our current Dungeon World campaign has a very zoomed-out hex map, and the GM's given us all license to add anything interesting we come up with whenever. It's fun, but really only the three most involved players have added anything, and we've not had a chance to explore those bits yet. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 04:03
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Yeah if I end up getting only three major plot points out of it, I'm not gonna complain. And the first completed bit of homework has already given me a huge setting detail (revolution back home), a major villain and a Thing To Do that could end up connected to pretty much anything, so I think this is going to work out fine. e: and so does the second. On the one hand it's the standard "there's a necromancer about" plot, on the other that one's a classic for a reason. e2: if your Deva undead hunter tells you his last life ended while on the hunt for a necromancer, it should range somewhere from "100% a-okay" to "expected" to have his former body show up as an animated zombie at some point, right? My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 08:16
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My Lovely Horse posted:Yeah if I end up getting only three major plot points out of it, I'm not gonna complain. And the first completed bit of homework has already given me a huge setting detail (revolution back home), a major villain and a Thing To Do that could end up connected to pretty much anything, so I think this is going to work out fine. Depends on how undead he is. If he's like a ghost, then yeah, 100% expected. If he has his own body like a zombie or lich or something, some players might get confused why he apparently has two different bodies.
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Mar 6, 2014 12:33
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Nah I mean like regular Deva who is a hunter of undead. I could have worded that better. e: although an undead who hunts a necromancer is a great backstory. "rear end in a top hat brought me back, well I'm gonna show him."
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Mar 6, 2014 12:43
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I prefer RPGs with "homework" so I now only longer campaigns with either 1) groups who are willing to do homework, or 2) games where I can reward players for doing homework without creating an imbalance with those who don't bother.
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Mar 6, 2014 15:28
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You know, I was starting to feel a little bit of DM burnout. Then I found this thing. http://www.lomion.de/cmm/undelamo.php 
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Mar 8, 2014 17:05
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I want to make a Titan World oneshot and I could use some advice on scenario building. For those who don't read the link, it's an Apocalypse World hack set in the world of Attack on Titan, a manga/anime where teenage soldiers battle nigh-unkillable giants that menace humanity's last stronghold. I have the skeleton of a scenario in my head: the PCs are deceived into a trap by a superior officer, they investigate and find out that she's snapped and wants to help the Titans wipe out humanity, they try to foil her plan and expose her. This would be complicated by the brass not listening to the PCs if they ask for help because they respect the officer and can't believe she'd do something like that. I need help adding flesh to the skeleton without falling into the trap of not allowing player choice. Suggestions for plot beats would help immensely. AOT hits a lot of the zombie tropes, so a lot of "zombie" plot beats can be ported into it. I plan to let the players figure out how to stop the officer themselves, but I'd also like a strategy to suggest if they're stuck. Furthermore, I've never run AW or any of its hacks, so general advice would be welcome too. Thank you in advance! Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 09:58
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With the X world setting, it'd probably help to write up a Front of exactly what she's planning to do - presumably in this case to open the gates, but if you work out steps she'll take in more detail (messing with the duty rosters, maybe trying to get the mechanics killed off, etc), it'll provide hooks. In general, the Fronts system is really clever, and really helps with those '...and now what?' moments. If you need to give them hints, maybe the officer has a loyal aide who's starting to get worried, turns to the PCs for help. I'd be wary of going too far in this direction, though, because it would rob the players of the satisfaction of doing it themselves. The usual X World solution is 'have a new bad thing happen' for them to get their teeth stuck into - a new puzzle piece. e: A couple of Fronts ideas might be 'Rescuing the [witness? engineer?] who's been stranded outside', 'Officer Evil attempting to get rid of them', 'Proving her guilt' and so on - concrete things that will lead to Badness if the PCs don't do something about them. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 10:18
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My Lovely Horse posted:My players are pretty hesitant with this whole collaborative setting thing I'm trying to get them to do. So I've given them homework: in no more than a session or two, you'll arrive in a region where we'll spend the rest of the campaign. Everyone please come up with the reason your character is going there. If you give me a place to go with it and draw it on the map, that's a gold star for you right there. I've got: - Paladin of the travel goddess who wants to rediscover and revitalize the legendary dwarven trade passage, which was a place full of sophisticated technology and wonders but was lost in a catastrophe of unclear definition. (I wrote down "looking for Moria" somewhat to the player's surprise, but he had to admit it) - Kalashtar whose community lost contact with the only known other settlement ages ago - Assassin looking for the last remaining assassin guild, or at least their archives (they either don't exist anymore or they're pretty good at what they do) - Witch who's in hot water with a dragon, because she promised to sell him the crown prince and the royal family has fled from the revolution - Servant of the goddess of death trying to finally end a plague of undead after failing at the task in his former life This all sounds pretty easy to connect, honestly. Especially the first two. The settlement was probably on the other side. Lost dwarven passage is a great dungeon, dragon and necromancer are great (and classic) final bosses, assassin guild is a great organization, either as friends or enemies. I've got this in the bag. e: final test of the assassin guild: "off this weird foreign crown prince." Oh yeah. We doin' this. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 12:45
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Pththya-lyi posted:I have the skeleton of a scenario in my head: the PCs are deceived into a trap by a superior officer, they investigate and find out that she's snapped and wants to help the Titans wipe out humanity, they try to foil her plan and expose her. This would be complicated by the brass not listening to the PCs if they ask for help because they respect the officer and can't believe she'd do something like that. If you've got some plot beat that you want them to hit, cut to the chase and get them there. Exercising GM fiat to jump to a single plot beat feels much less railroady than trying to hit a trail of breadcrumbs. In your particular instance, don't make the superior officer arc last too long. It is a cool idea that you want them to experience, so get them there then let off the reigns to see how they handle it. Especially since it is a one-shot, you don't want to waste too much time with exposition. I'd open with a quick debrief with SUPERIOR OFFICER sending them on a simple mission to introduce the world, establish the officer as an authority figure, and setup for a quick warmup fight against a smaller titan - maybe 30 minutes for both the debrief and the warmup. Then I'd go right into the trap encounter, leaving how they figure it out and deal with it fairly loose, but I wouldn't make it too much of a mystery because you want to hit the discovery beat to propel the rest of the session. After that I'd leave it wide open and let the Apocalypse Engine do its work.
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Mar 10, 2014 16:48
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Thanks very much for the advice. I will have to let you know when (if) I run this and how it goes.
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Mar 11, 2014 13:09
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Huh, so I'm playing Dungeon World and my players came up with a cool idea. Okay so long story short; they're 4 refugees on a new continent in the early renaissance era in a fantasy world. They easily took a plot hook involving some magical crystals that have different powers according to their colours. They found a purple one that serves to guard, and a green one that serves to heal (so they claimed; the dwarf figured this out by communing with the crystals) Right now they helped some Elf colonists invade a native lizardman tribe to steal another purple crystal in a temple, but they failed some rolls and the Elf commander that was with them destroyed the crystal instead. They were like "why the hell you doing that, man?" and I bullshitted my way out by stating that the crystals aren't inherently magical, but rather absorb magic from the world around them and thus numb the flow of magic. The Elf kingdom wants to destroy these because they believe it is the natural right for magic to flow (and implicitly for their mage oligarchy to grow stronger) Now, they know that these crystals come from deep within a mountain to their north, which is where they're headed. They assumed the crystals were just 100% good and valuable, but now they seem to think these crystals serve a higher purpose. Of course I want to give this to them. I'd like to somehow lure them into destroying the source of the crystals in the mountain, so wild magic surges overflow the world and they have to find a way to fix it before the flood of elementals ruin everything. What way would be the best? Maybe the lizardmen in the mountains have forgotten the meaning of the crystals and mine them as cheap resources, to fuel some industrial revolution based on magic? Maybe a cult wants to get the world gone so magic runs free, as they religion decreed? Maybe the Elf army just doesn't know what game they're playing and they accidentally gently caress everything up? All of these at the same time? I'm trying to throw in some ethical curveballs at them. Let the lizardmen mine these resources so they survive the wave of colonialism? Let the Elves destroy the source so they can live again in a magical world like their ancestors, which suddenly stopped ages ago? Let the crumbling Human empire they were born in, steal these crystals to use them as military and diplomatic leverage to survive? Let the world be destroyed to usher a new era of divine elementals? I have a lot of ideas here and I'm wondering if these are all interesting and how to best present them.
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Mar 12, 2014 00:46
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Don't lure them into destroying anything, play to find out what happens remember? Decide what the consequences of crystals and no crystals would be, and let it ride. Bonus points if both alternatives are terrible.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:07
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And if you want crystal destruction to be such a calamity, it sounds ripe for an Impending Doom. As for "how best to present them", to set this up in a Dungeon Worldy fashion, you would have two conflicting dangers on the campaign front - one whose Impending doom requires crystals, one whose impending doom requires no crystals. The players learn about the dangers as they encounter their Grim Portents, and ultimately get to pick sides and make the call on which doom occurs (and propels the next arc). Setting up such fronts and dangers is central to DW GMing and is explained very well in the book.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:54
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Hi, So I'm a fairly new DM. I've run a three month D&D 4e campaign a couple years ago when my regular DM needed a break. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped, due to inexperience at the time, but I've been working on a sequel campaign ever since. (I have been playing continuously since.) I may finally get my chance to DM again in the next couple months and I wanted to solidify a few concepts that I have planned. Without giving too much away, since some of my future players occasionally glance this way when browsing the internet, I'd like to run an encounter idea by you guys. The basic idea is that the party will enter (what is essentially) a temple to (what is essentially my OC god of gaming) Tabliope. This encounter is primarily meant to be a source of exposition where certain things may be made clear after talking to a being that can explain what is actually going on. It's basically a Q&A session with a god in a horror themed world. The party will be set upon by a creature that can take the forms of the players randomly (in a John Carpenter's The Thing sort of way). It will attack when its turn comes up and then randomly become one of the players. Players trying to attack it at random may attack other party members. As is, this would be a terrible encounter, if not for the fact that Tabliope will be presiding over the encounter. Being mischievous by nature, she will tell the party members which one is possessed so they can gang up on it. The catch is that she will require a party member to fulfill some arbitrary task on their turn. Something like... do 20 pushups, run across the room, stand on one foot, etc. This will allow for some conversation, as the party's typical tactics don't work when they don't know which one is possessed and the odds of trying to nuke everyone in hopes that they kill it is a terrible idea. So, my question is thus: Do you think this is a good idea for a campaign, and if so, what sort of arbitrary tasks might you suggest that would make for an amusing session?
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Mar 13, 2014 00:44
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That sounds like something more akin to a comedy game than a horror game.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:02
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It sounds as if you want to run a game of Paranoia there.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:15
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Somnom posted:Hi, It sounds super annoying, to be brutally frank. Are you sure your players will be on board with this?
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Mar 13, 2014 03:02
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neonchameleon posted:It sounds as if you want to run a game of Paranoia there. Yeah, basically, but we're stuck with D&D 4e. Lynx Winters posted:That sounds like something more akin to a comedy game than a horror game. With my group, ANYthing I write will turn into a comedy game, so I'm not too worried. sebmojo posted:It sounds super annoying, to be brutally frank. Are you sure your players will be on board with this? My players are pretty much on board for anything. We've done plenty of weird stuff in the past. We're usually up for experimentation, and if it only ruins one session, they'll forgive me. I wanted something different from the typical hack-and-slash that permeates the system, and everyone there should be able to recognize the movie reference. That being said, if you think it'll be that bad, I may reconsider.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:16
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Somnom posted:
What aspects do you think you would find fun about this, if somebody did this to you? I mean . . . sitting around talking to a DMPC, in a confusing fight that will force them to attack each other or do pushups, when you signed on for playing a tactical RPG made for running into dungeons and/or dragons? What would be the good parts for you?
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Mar 13, 2014 03:21
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homullus posted:What aspects do you think you would find fun about this, if somebody did this to you? I mean . . . sitting around talking to a DMPC, in a confusing fight that will force them to attack each other or do pushups, when you signed on for playing a tactical RPG made for running into dungeons and/or dragons? What would be the good parts for you? Well, first of all, we've been playing for a few years now. We've never encountered a dragon, nor have we entered a dungeon. There is no magic (arcana becomes technology.) Everything has been reflavoured to fit the campaigns that we like to run. We only have the books for 4e and so we stretch the rules to fit whatever style of game we're looking to play. We shouldn't have to go out and learn a new style of gameplay just because we want to play something Sci-Fi or whatever. This is meant to take one hour of a three plus month campaign. It is a gimmick. A short encounter where they can ask the questions they want to ask about what's been going on, and enjoy something that they've never encountered before. An hour where they're out of their comfort zone and they have to opportunity to RP in a bizarre situation. THAT is what I was looking for.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:42
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Yeah, I think this violates a few basic principals of good DMing. In general you shouldn't have unstoppable DMPCs lording over the PCs. You shouldn't make an active attempt to humiliate and demean the characters. You don't want a NPC that you clearly favor over the players to be super important and steal the spotlight all the time. This scenario only works if you want the players to really hate this NPC, and potentially you. You shouldn't try to actively make the players feel confused and threatened, or invalidate their choices in making the characters how they are (this is something that happens a lot with games like 3E, where certain scenarios are just "gently caress you for not being a wizard"). You're stealing their agency, they're only succeeding because they are doing stupid poo poo for an rear end in a top hat. A more fun version of the same basic encounter is to have one or more mimics who pretend to be players and use clever tactics to confuse them BUT they have obvious ticks that the players can figure out on their own. The players use the knowledge that they have about each other, their shared history, and tricky tactics to outfight the mimics and save the day. If you want a Q&A with a DMPC just present the option. If the players are interested in this exposition they'll ask questions. If you want something to spice it up have them play a game with the god of games. Maybe a riddle game, or a tit-for-tat thing where they have to answer questions for every question they ask. If you really need the god to get involved with the mimic fight, have him helping the mimics, maybe by hiding them after they're discovered. But when the players win they impress the god. You could even have the god make various offers during the fight, future rewards or favors if they accept limitations to make it "more fun." But the limitations should be very real and tactical things for the players to think about, and the rewards should be cool things for overcoming an obstacle, not condescending gifts they need to beat a trap encounter.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:45
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I think you may be confusing "different game style" with "bizarre, pointless mechanic."
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Mar 13, 2014 03:46
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Mr. Prokosch posted:A more fun version of the same basic encounter is to have one or more mimics who pretend to be players and use clever tactics to confuse them BUT they have obvious ticks that the players can figure out on their own. The players use the knowledge that they have about each other, their shared history, and tricky tactics to outfight the mimics and save the day. Okay, well thank you for some actual advice, instead of posts with the not-so-vague "you're stupid and your ideas are stupid" tone. I posted this in the GM Advice thread to actually get some advice because I am, admittedly a novice GM. Let's start over. I like these ideas. This is pretty much the idea that I was going for, just more expertly conceived. It seems a lot easier to implement as well.
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Mar 13, 2014 04:07
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Somnom posted:Okay, well thank you for some actual advice, instead of posts with the not-so-vague "you're stupid and your ideas are stupid" tone. I posted this in the GM Advice thread to actually get some advice because I am, admittedly a novice GM. I overshot the mark a bit, then, sorry about that. I was trying to point out that situations that sound good on paper or that might be interesting scenes in a movie or book are often not at all fun to play through, and that, dungeons and/or dragons aside, "run around the room/do pushups instead of playing the game you thought you'd be playing" isn't generally what people want (they want the thing they came to play). I thought that by asking you what you thought would be fun about going through that, you would have a way of looking at your own creation differently AND maybe we'd all get a better sense of what you were actually after by creating it. Riffing off the previous one, a series of encounters that use the combat rules, but that they have to solve by alternate or unusual means, could be interesting as long as it's not too long. "Finish this minion battle in two rounds" or "make it through here without killing any of the bad guys" sort of thing.
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Mar 13, 2014 04:17
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homullus posted:I overshot the mark a bit, then, sorry about that. I was trying to point out that situations that sound good on paper or that might be interesting scenes in a movie or book are often not at all fun to play through, and that, dungeons and/or dragons aside, "run around the room/do pushups instead of playing the game you thought you'd be playing" isn't generally what people want (they want the thing they came to play). I thought that by asking you what you thought would be fun about going through that, you would have a way of looking at your own creation differently AND maybe we'd all get a better sense of what you were actually after by creating it. All is forgiven. I will admit that I was getting frustrated, as I could have made it more clear as to what I was looking for. I do have a tendency to favour my own characters, especially since I have spent a good year working on the story and have yet to actually meet the PCs (though we've already been discussing plot hooks). I especially favoured the god because they're not meant to kill them ...yet (we'll wait for a higher level,) and the god has information that directly relates to one of the PC's plot hooks. I assure you that I do TRY to be a good DM. Now, another question (to actually add something to the thread) There's a very short piece of poetry that I'd like to add as a piece of flavour and hint at the "truth" of the mystery of the campaign. My first idea was to have it written on a wall or something, but that seemed like a bad idea. I was thinking about having an open book somewhere, but by the time it's relevant, I anticipate they'll mostly be done exploring. My current DM had us go to abandoned buildings where experiments took place and had us read logs, like in Resident Evil, and that just bored the hell out of me. That being said, how might you tuck away not-so-critical information? It's not imperative that they read it, but I think certain players would appreciate finding something like that. Should I just wait and see if an opportunity just presents itself? Should I sneak it onto their person or have a random NPC give it to them?
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Mar 13, 2014 04:49
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Personally, I'd just keep it in my back pocket and not plan where it goes at all. When a golden opportunity presents itself just whip it out and fit the piece of information in. You'll look like a genius. Then again I have a very improvisational style and not everyone is comfortable with doing that on the spot.
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Mar 13, 2014 04:59
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The game: Pathfinder The setting: Ravenloft So my players turn up to a random pissant town in Barovia at the same time a string of murders (specifically eviscerations) begin. The party investigates some ghoul and vampire attacks, off the ghouls, and as far as they know, dust the vamps. Since day loving 1 I've been hinting through just about every possible way that the murders started when they got to town, and that maybe they should be considering that. Not a chance. Seemingly on a whim they decided to explore the town's wells, which they discover are on top of a catacomb. Right where the party member who is murdering everyone, raising the dead, and cutting deals with vampries has built an evil lair (via a million notes thrown at my face from across the table by this point). It's more or less going to go down this or next session, depending on how much they screw around town. One party member and his minions vs the rest of the party. One player death assured. The murderer is totally okay with rerolling. Has anyone run a session like this before? I'm sort of just feeling out for advice on how to run this without causing too much butthurt. On the one hand they bungled every clue I threw at them (To the point of *literally* being around the corner from the murderer with blood on his hands and a body slung over his shoulder), which deserves punishment. On the other hand a game where everyone dies is not really fun for anyone but the DM.
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Mar 13, 2014 05:51
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I'm sure your serial murderer player is having a ball, because secret notes are hella fun, but your Barovian town's wide walls do not hold but one only man. Murderer and other players, what should be in that? How are your other players reacting to this turn of events?
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Mar 13, 2014 06:04
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I feel I should preface this post with that I don't really know anything about Ravenloft. Ignore me if I am missing some crucial setting-specific information that makes the rest of this post null and void. So since they, in your words, have bungled every clue you've given them, and it turns out that they've been hanging out with the serial murderer this whole time. How do you think the townspeople will react if they emerge from the catacombs with their former party member's head on a stick and say "so, uh, turns out we were kinda aiding and abetting the serial killer this whole time. Sorry...? But hey, at least we killed him for you!" But at least a few people will be pissed that they allowed the murders to go on this long. What I'm saying is you're right that the fact that they've allowed the killer to go unpunished for so long should carry consequences, but party wipes are the least fun consequence of all. Let the serial killer reveal his true colors and capture them so they can escape in the nick of time. Let the townspeople launch a witch hunt against them when they find out you've been rolling with the killer. Let the killer's player reroll as the guy who gives them shelter and gets them safely out of town when the mob comes for them. IMO having a member of the party turn out to be The Villain This Whole Time! is a hell of a plot twist and I'd love to be a PC in that game, and no roleplayer worth his salt would have any reaction other than "holy poo poo what the gently caress awesome." But in order for it to have a lasting impact (again IMO) handle it cinematically. Have your serial killer PC get fed up with leaving clues and have an outburst in the middle of his murder catacombs. Have him rub every missed clue in his party members' faces, ICly of course. Have the vampires lead their freshly resurrected army in an assault on the town hall, have the killer PC lead the party to the rescue only to be stabbed in the back at a critical moment in the fight. Turn it into a big gently caress-off setpiece boss fight. Ham it up, it'll be loving badass and your players will have a blast if they're cool - presumably, they are. If they're not cool, or you're afraid they won't be cool, then you have a much bigger problem. e: On further research - consisting of a five-second google search - I have discovered that Ravenloft is a horror-themed setting. I may have found one situation where my usual GM approach of "MAKE IT A BIG DUMB CINEMATIC SETPIECE" may not apply. Sade fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 06:35
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Elevorot posted:On the other hand a game where everyone dies is not really fun for anyone but the DM. Speak for yourself! One of the best one-shots I've ever been in was one where the PCs were members of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, who resisted the ghetto's liquidation by the Germans. Anyone who knows their WWII history will already understand that the characters had no real hope of victory or rescue, but the scenario was still fun because we focused on killing as many Nazis as we could before we were killed in turn. Taking the attitude that your character is going to die is actually kind of liberating because you don't have to spend time worrying about how to save your character. The challenge in a suicide mission is not avoiding death, but making death meaningful. That was different from your scenario, however, because the players all knew we were playing a TPK. It sounds like your PCs don't know necessarily know how deadly your scenario could be, and it also sounds like you think they'd take a TPK badly. I wouldn't necessarily assume this, especially since they're playing a horror game, but you know your group better than I do. My advice would be to figure out a subtle way to ask the group members how they'd feel about their character dying and make your decision based on that. Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 06:57
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So, in our last session (4E), my players did something I did not expect. After doing a small "quest" for some kobolds, which basically coincided with their main quest so it wasn't a detour, they decided to just kill the kobolds for the XP. Now, that's not really my problem, because I read Skullkickers and I wish that more D&D parties were borderline gangs than beacons of hope, but the problem is that we started this campaign because they recently watched the Hobbit and were pumped for some high fantasy heroics, world is in danger, etc etc. One of them even made a huge deal out of character creation because he wanted his dude to be as close to Gandalf as possible. And then they go and murder some kobolds for the XP. Should I just get rid of XP and let them level at appropriate story points? They were originally against it (they are both CRPG players so they couldn't even wrap their heads around the idea that you can have monsters that are not bags of XP), but they eventually understood my point. Still, I also offered them to reconsider the tone of the campaign to make it more murderhobo-y, but they refused. Dunno, am I making it too much of a deal that they killed a bunch of kobolds that were not even part of the main story? They are both new players (one of them had some experience with a very bad DM though) and I just want them to have fun playing DnD, and having them worry about one number on their sheet seems like a bad thing to have in the game. In return for taking away XP from battles, I'll try to bump the rest of the reward minigame a bit (items, boons and things like that), but I'll probably post in the 4E thread about that.
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Mar 13, 2014 10:21
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I'm guessing the players didn't get your clues because it's totally against expectations for one of the PCs to be the bad guy. This isn't just them being thick - there's no reason for them to believe that that's a possibility. You should feel free to have the big showdown between the actual PCs and the murderer, but you should fudge things heavily in the PCs' favour. If the game ends in a TPK, they'll probably be unhappy and blame you. Rexides posted:Should I just get rid of XP and let them level at appropriate story points? Yeah, gently caress XP. Just level everyone up at once when you feel like it. It's fun and everyone likes it.
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Mar 13, 2014 10:35
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The way XP is handled in D&D - all editions - is total horseshit. When I run D&D I just hand levels out at appropriate points in the story. That said, I would have been grilling these players about why their characters decided to murder the kobolds they'd just run an errand for. Seems kinda schizophrenic and video gamey, and the kind of thing I'd have come back to bite them later. Maybe those kobolds were keeping a population of gnolls or bugbears or something in check, and now that the kobolds are dead they're gonna breed like rabbits and take over the countryside.
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Mar 13, 2014 17:56
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Sade posted:The way XP is handled in D&D - all editions - is total horseshit. When I run D&D I just hand levels out at appropriate points in the story. Sometimes players are just racist to kobolds? A couple of campaigns ago, the party helped a bunch of kobold refugees from the underdark gain the right to live and work within some village, but were always fairly certain that they were up to something shady. They were, but I never really let on to the fact either way. When one of them opened up a butcher shop like a month later, the PC cleric walked in there, smashed his table into splinters with her mace, and then started interrogating the little kobold in the chef hat about local crime. In D&D I'm pretty straight about XP. Sometimes I'll bump it up by a little bit if an adventure ends and everybody is like one encounter from a level-up. I've run a lot of HERO System, too, though, which handles its XP kind of like World of Darkness, in the form of a handful of raw Character Points. I found that people reacted pretty well when I started doing "level ups" with it, where, if somebody did something that was both in character and especially awesome, I would announce "so-and-so has gained a level!" and dump like 10 character points on them to consume right there on the spot, sometimes in the middle of an encounter. The party's gadgeteer/roguish type gained levels when she picked an incredibly difficult and heavily trapped lock in one try while the rest of the party was still arguing about whether to mess with it, and when she carpet-bombed a bandit encampment with explosive bolts from the air to decisively end a major battle before it even really started. The party's knight gained a level when he surfed on a knocked-out wyvern's back, back down to the tower that everybody was fighting on top of, and then proceeded to bodyslam it into the enemy leader.
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Mar 13, 2014 18:20
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So my characters are moving on to the next module. Suffice it to say in my previous module, the old king died :metal: The prince refuses to come home because the town where he's attending university is beset with undead and bandits, an unnatural amount of each swarming this town. It's going to turn out to be a Lake Placid kind of adventure, where the lighthouse worker is luring in bandits with the promise of treasure. Except that the bandits are basically food for his pet, Pumpkin, the Undead Lake Monster who resides in the lake and eats bandits who get too close to the water. Some of them crawl back out as the undead who are also terrorizing the town. In the last game, I found my players to be very analytical. If there is a mystery, they'll actually investigate. I'm trying to drum up some red herrings, stuff to throw them off for a little bit. There can be a mini boss with one of the head bandits. They're not combat mongers, though.
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Mar 13, 2014 19:22
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Rexides posted:Should I just get rid of XP and let them level at appropriate story points? Absolutely! This isn't a videogame. Even if it was the idea of doing a quest and then murdering the quest givers for an extra xp boost is exploity bullshit. You probably should find a way to teach them that tabletop RPGs are completely adaptable. Actions have consequences. This is one of the main features of the medium and they don't seem to realize it. If they love XP and they want to keep it, you should customize the rewards to the tone of the game. If the game is about being murderous thugs they should get xp for murdering. If the game is about advancing an epic plot they should get huge sums of xp for doing epic world changing stuff. If it's about exploring a world they should get xp for finding new places, people, and things. The players will be interested in whatever gives them xp, so give xp for the things the characters would be interested in. That way there's no dissonance.
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Mar 13, 2014 19:33
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My players (well, they were...but we all moved to different parts of the country) pretty much lived for exp. However, they weren't picky about where it came from. I gave it out according to the exp charts in the DMG, sure, but also willy-nilly for roleplaying and story advancement, or figuring things out, or for completely OC stuff, like the Halloween game where I gave exp for dressing up or bringing props appropriate to your character. That night was the best one we had, and some of those props became permanent fixtures at the table. Don't be shy about bending or outright breaking the exp "rules."
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Mar 13, 2014 19:41
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