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Fantasy Inception as guest-written by Grant Morrison is more or less what I'm going for here. I'll be happy if I can pull one half of that off. e: the spirit quest, that is. Everything up to that, I'm going for the old-school, nasty sort of fey folk. They say the feywild is a really pretty place. That must be why hardly anyone who goes there comes back. "The main storyarcs are all about one of you at a time" is our campaign premise but that being said I'm always trying to drop hints to upcoming arcs or have past arcs influence things so I get a good mix. My players can put in sidequests for specific items and I usually manage to link each of those to their personal thing. Apart from that I've got it set up like this: Assassin wants to join the assassin's guild: we're finishing this up right now, and he's going to receive a list of former guild masters and where they live at the end. It's a blank list so he can surprise me during the rest of the campaign by saying "actually I know a guy who lives around here" and get an assassination job or some help out of it. Invoker is hunting a necromancer: gonna link this to the warlock arc by bringing in the prince's mother. Exiled by the revolution and quite mad, she wants the necromancer to turn her into a vampire (or something) so she can return, show the revolutionaries what for, and reign forever. (Actually maybe I could feature that in the spirit quest. The prince could be afraid of that outcome, this is how they learn about it etc.) Dwarf is looking for the ancient dwarven trade passage: this is a ways off yet, but I think I'm gonna have ancient dwarven technological marvels pop up the more they travel, until we get around to it properly. Bard is hearing voices from the spirit world: also far off, but I have something in mind, and the spirit quest is a perfect place to drop some major hints. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Aug 24, 2014 |
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Aug 24, 2014 09:20
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I'm building a big action set piece to kick off my new campaign, and I need help designing combat mechanics for a "Kraken VS. Attack Speedboat" encounter. To set the scene, the players start on a ferry that is attacked by a pirate with psychic control over a giant squid. The squid starts tearing holes in the hull, and the ferry captain begs the players to go below decks and retrieve a priceless treasure for him before the ship sinks. When they get to the bottom, the treasure is revealed to be a marvelous speed skiff with mounted weapons. (Conveniently, It was the captain's retirement plan to use it for hunting sea monsters.) They bust out of the cargo hold just before being fully submerged, and then the real battle begins. Using the skiff, the players will have to protect the other ferry passengers, who are now in lifeboats, and kill or escape the squid. Mood Music Deck Closeup:  Various Tokens:  Overview:  Rough Ideas: Switching back and forth between two map zoom levels, players fight off the Kraken in a sweet speedboat. One player will assume control of the steering wheel, while others man the turrets, the nets, and the engines, as well as clearing adds off the deck, rescuing overboard passengers, etc. etc. The squid will have the power to launch "eggs" with various abilities. The eggs will be able to swim after their target and will detonate within a certain proximity. Red = Explosive, Blue = "Sticky Ink," Yellow = Krakenspawn Adds. If the players try to draw the squid away from the wreck, it goes after the passengers to lure them back. (If they do manage this, I'll use another map without the ship underlay to represent "open water") I'd like for the squid to capture the skiff and hold them in place at points, possibly ensnaring one player and trying to swallow them whole. (This is the reason for the alternate "cruising" and "feeding" squid tokens.) I was initially planning to just wing a lot of the rules on the night, but I thought maybe you guys could help me organize the encounter a little more concretely. Starter Questions: 1. How to govern movement? Just give them both 100ft base speed per turn? 2. How should turrets work? Just a ranged attack check with X modifier? Do the different cannons have different abilities? 3. Attacks VS. players & Attacks VS. the Skiff 4. How do the squid's abilities work? 5. Alternate victory conditions: All passengers rescued? Escape, leaving everyone behind? 6. Are there vechicle combat guidelines in other RPGs? How do they work there? The players are at 6th level. We're playing 4E on roll20.net. ***Disclaimer: Everything I've shopped together here came from other pieces around the internet (mostly deviantart and cartographer's guild). I am proud of the end result, but I cannot take credit for any of my source images.*** Morton Haynice fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 03:27
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Morton Haynice posted:I'm building a big action set piece to kick off my new campaign, and I need help designing combat mechanics for a "Kraken VS. Attack Speedboat" encounter.  I am going to be using that boat design for anything that ever involves boats/ships, every chance I get. Thank you for introducing me to this, unintentional though it may be.
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Aug 25, 2014 04:11
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Morton Haynice posted:6. Are there vechicle combat guidelines in other RPGs? How do they work there?
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Aug 25, 2014 06:39
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In my 4e game when the PCs were fighting from the top of a weaponized Winnebago the turrets were basically alternate attacks they could make with their standard action. If I remember right the guns also could break/run out of ammo on certain bad d20 rolls when attacking, which would require skill checks to fix.
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Aug 25, 2014 06:49
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I would add simple stats to the turrets to make them destructible entities, allowing for the squid to cause component damage.
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Aug 25, 2014 06:52
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Rorac posted:
I'm glad you like it! I'm very proud of how it came out. Always loved the "Japanese Top-Down Shooter" school of vehicle design. If you PM me your email address I'll send you the raw JPEG without all that token and grid clutter. The ship is intended to be the players' home base throughout the campaign, which takes place on a massive archipelago called "The Million Isles" I'm going to let the players name it themselves, but I've been calling it the Blue Horizon. I have all kinds of different encounters planned around it. Sea monster hunts, naval battles, and a Big Race, for starters. I'll definitely bring my questions about those here. Thanks for the input, guys! Morton Haynice fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 14:01
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I just ended a 3-hour session with my very first time as a DM (and as a tabletop RPGer, really), using Microlite20 (thank you for whoever made that recommendation in the Systems thread so many years ago) and I had a few questions: 1. I cannot really figure out how spellcasting is supposed to work. According to the core rules: Saving against magic (Will save) is usually MIND bonus + your level. But at the same time the rules also say The Difficulty Class (DC) for all spells is 10 + Caster Level + Caster's MIND bonus In the case of a PC casting a spell on an monster, does this mean that I as the GM will roll a d20 for the monster's save, then compare it to the PC's [10 + 1 level bonus + 1 MIND bonus], such that the PC's spell will hit if my roll is 12 or lower? That bolded part just came to me now after re-reading the rules while making this post. During the game I was just fudging it a bit by having the PC roll a d20+bonuses and checking if my monster could get higher than that. 2. How do Encounter Levels scale? The rules state that 1 monster hit dice = 1 EL, but there are only 2 PCs in my group so I'm really scared that I might throw up an encounter that they can't handle because I can't tell how EL's map to the characters. Just wing it, I guess? I even gave them Healing Surge abilities just in case. Anyway they seemed to have a really good time. One of them wanted to be Starlord so I just quickly modified the Bard class to be able to cast gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 25, 2014 17:04
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I think that means that the caster first rolls against their 12 to check for a successful casting, then the victim makes their Will save to see if it affects them.
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Aug 25, 2014 17:17
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chitoryu12 posted:I think that means that the caster first rolls against their 12 to check for a successful casting, then the victim makes their Will save to see if it affects them. But doesn't that mean that it becomes more and more difficult to cast a spell as the PC levels up? At level 1 he needs to roll better than a 12 to cast, but at level 2 he needs to roll better than a 13, or is it rolling UNDER the DC?
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Aug 25, 2014 17:43
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gradenko_2000 posted:But doesn't that mean that it becomes more and more difficult to cast a spell as the PC levels up? At level 1 he needs to roll better than a 12 to cast, but at level 2 he needs to roll better than a 13, or is it rolling UNDER the DC? Now that you mention it, yeah that's what it looks like. As far as I know the system is based on typical d20, which means that he'd need to roll above the number.
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Aug 25, 2014 19:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just ended a 3-hour session with my very first time as a DM (and as a tabletop RPGer, really), using Microlite20 (thank you for whoever made that recommendation in the Systems thread so many years ago) and I had a few questions: I would assume the DC is the target number to pass/fail the saving throw. That's how it works in DnD, and it is a sensible enough system. The DC is a fixed number based on the caster's listed info. The target of the spell makes a saving throw (rolls d20 and adds saving throw bonuses) and if they roll equal to or higher than the DC then they pass the save, lower and they fail.
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Aug 25, 2014 19:23
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Morton Haynice posted:Fighting a squid on a speedboat I would do this by having just the one level of zoom -- the speedboat close-up -- and having everything in the battle be positioned relative to the speedboat. Then the boat's steering allows players to make a skill check in order to move enemies around on the map, but nobody has to steer. You could also fit in a bunch of hazards using the ship's various hardpoints. For example, they see dangerous reefs up ahead, and have one round to make a skill check at the steering column to navigate them, or everybody on the ship takes damage and is knocked prone. Or they see that the kraken's spawn are attacking another ship and need to work the guns to take the spawn down or lose their allies. Using the guns as weapons against the kraken sounds like a great idea too. I'd give them restricted fields of fire so that players have to rush from one hardpoint to another as the kraken moves about. Also, it would be a good idea to give the kraken some land-based spawn that can jump onto the deck and harass the party, so that the defenders have an opportunity to shine. Boss fights in 4e benefit enormously from minions.
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Aug 26, 2014 07:58
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Does anyone have any ideas on what would be a good way to represent characters that are under effects? My friends and I are playing a campaign right now, and I'd really like some way to show that a character is under the effect of, say, a Prayer, or maybe sickened, or something like that, so that one doesn't need to go through the list of all possible things, reciting every effect that might be on them and double checking with the caster. I was thinking of something like thin colored wooden disks to place under miniatures to represent different things, then putting one in front of the person who cast it or something like that. This way, for example, the Cleric with the prayer (that's my guy!) can add disks to those affected, then when he tracks the effect running out, he simply removes them on his turn, instead of having to remind people that they're no longer affected, or that they do have bonuses now, etc. Every try anything like this?
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Aug 26, 2014 16:29
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I play a bard and I usually put dice next to an affected character with the number of remaining turns for each spell/effect currently going. If the spell affects the whole party I'll just keep the countdown dice next to me. Usually there are only 2 or 3 things going at once and I do the modifiers. So the fighter will roll his attack and say "that's a 15" and then I'll say "add +3 from ~bard things~ to make it an 18". Since the group I'm in are all pretty new it makes it easier if I just add the modifiers because it's one less thing they need to keep track of.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:55
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HatfulOfHollow posted:I play a bard and I usually put dice next to an affected character with the number of remaining turns for each spell/effect currently going. If the spell affects the whole party I'll just keep the countdown dice next to me. Usually there are only 2 or 3 things going at once and I do the modifiers. So the fighter will roll his attack and say "that's a 15" and then I'll say "add +3 from ~bard things~ to make it an 18". Since the group I'm in are all pretty new it makes it easier if I just add the modifiers because it's one less thing they need to keep track of. Another big thing we have isn't related to timers - one of our characters is a dual-wielding fighter whose specialty is nets. He throws nets on everyone, entangling them. Often we, and the DM, forget who has been entangled, if they're still entangled or have broken out, that sort of thing.
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Aug 26, 2014 17:22
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In our 4e game, we had a big bag of those tiny elastic bands you use in hair braids, we just hung appropriate colours off the models (red for bloodied, etc.)
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Aug 26, 2014 17:27
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Whybird posted:I would do this by having just the one level of zoom -- the speedboat close-up -- and having everything in the battle be positioned relative to the speedboat. Then the boat's steering allows players to make a skill check in order to move enemies around on the map, but nobody has to steer. These are all great ideas, especially allowing players to step away from the wheel and let the ship travel in a straight line. That's something I hadn't even considered. While using just the one map would definitely be simpler, I'm trying to decide whether I want the actual geography of the encounter to be important. Does having a wide zoom with all the elements in concrete locations add an additional tactical dimension that enhances the experience, or is it too complicated and limits my ability to surprise the players?
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Aug 26, 2014 18:39
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If you're running 4e, it really doesn't need any help in terms of being complicated and faffy - I think giving players a zoomed-out map to worry about as well would be too complex. Having said that, I think 4e is too complex anyway.
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Aug 26, 2014 18:45
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I would reckon you'd have your hands full with just one level of fight. Also, bear in mind that although the larger-scale navigation game might add tactical depth, it would only add it for the one player doing the driving, who doesn't get to contribute to the main fight.
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Aug 26, 2014 19:08
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One thing I've always liked in open sea combat is to make the water matter - the ocean isn't a big flat pond. Have the wind pick up and the sea start to get rough. Waves come at the ship from one or two different angles. Each time a wave hits PCs have to make balance checks. If the wave hits the broad side of the ship the check should be harder. I like to give notice that a wave is coming and allow the PCs to adjust the positioning of the ship so it makes the balance check easier. It will take one or two PCs out of combat for a round while ensuring they still feel like they're contributing. You can use a simple device like that to make the encounter more interesting without needing to know the exact landscape.
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Aug 26, 2014 19:23
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"roll well or miss your turn" isn't exactly fun for that one person who manages to roll a 3 every time, though, and it'll make balancing (ha) the encounter a bitch (presumably water-based mobs wouldn't be effected). If you were taking that route, maybe have something like 'wave hits every (2? 3?) turns, you have to roll balance if you're not behind (whatever you hide behind to dodge waves). Though that massively penalises melee - maybe the rocking gives a small minus to ranged attacks to even it out? Balancing the encounter would still be tricky.
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Aug 26, 2014 20:13
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There are plenty of alternatives to 'miss your turn' in 4e, remember. Being knocked prone still preserves a lot of player choice: it's only a move action to stand up and you can still do a lot of stuff while lying down (but less well). Also, shifting players is never not fun. I agree that every turn would be excessive though. Make it something that they can see coming, so they can also prepare by racing away from the side of the boat, and something that hits enemies too so that PCs can use it to their advantage.
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Aug 27, 2014 09:40
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Morpheus posted:Does anyone have any ideas on what would be a good way to represent characters that are under effects? My friends and I are playing a campaign right now, and I'd really like some way to show that a character is under the effect of, say, a Prayer, or maybe sickened, or something like that, so that one doesn't need to go through the list of all possible things, reciting every effect that might be on them and double checking with the caster. I utilize a shitton of things from all my Heroscape sets when I DM, and one of those things are the thin red "glyphs" that come with the game. When you put an effect on a creature, place a glyph under them to represent it. We have different colors for different things, and people are typically trusted to remember who they've poisoned, burned, whatever.
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Aug 27, 2014 21:20
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Had a great idea about my fantasy Inception thing: the party does the spirit journey, retrieves the prince's true self, delivers him to the dragon, and they go on to do whatever they want to do next. Except some little details are wrong, and they keep piling up - one or two sessions later it turns out they're still inside the spirit realm, and someone (probably one of the competition NPCs) has hijacked their spirit journey, fed them illusions, and is doing the delivery at this very moment so they have to scramble to get the prince back. Pros: it'd be one hell of a moment, I could put in a strong link to the bard's backstory, it solves the problem of how to do the delivery because the NPC simply summons the dragon Cons: potential to be frustrating as two sessions' worth of work turn out to be an illusion Maybe I can make it so whatever they do during this period still has some bearing on the real world, because it's not just an illusion, they are in the actual spirit world and interact with stuff. Or they could put the clues together and end the journey early. I kind of really want to pull that off.
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Aug 29, 2014 18:23
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how many people run roll20 games and would actually consider purchasing dungeon tiles? i'm working on a set for my own game and figured i could flesh it out to ~100 total tiles and sell it on the roll20 marketplace for a few bucks, but I have no idea if people actually bother buying that stuff. small example of the set im making 
treeboy fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Aug 29, 2014 |
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Aug 29, 2014 19:05
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My Lovely Horse posted:(probably one of the competition NPCs) What if the dragon laid a trap in the spirit world so it could manipulate the party into getting more than its fair share? Then when they find out the dragon will be forced to grant them some additional boon (because it's guilty of violating the pact). That might help make up for some of their lost time.
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Aug 30, 2014 02:11
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Can I get some ideas on plot hooks or outlines for a zombie / Walking Dead type scenario? I'm thinking of running an FAE or houseruled Dungeon World game but I'm drawing a blank on goals and possible challenges
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Aug 30, 2014 11:02
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DalaranJ posted:What if the dragon laid a trap in the spirit world so it could manipulate the party into getting more than its fair share? Then when they find out the dragon will be forced to grant them some additional boon (because it's guilty of violating the pact). That might help make up for some of their lost time.
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Aug 30, 2014 12:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:Can I get some ideas on plot hooks or outlines for a zombie / Walking Dead type scenario? I'm thinking of running an FAE or houseruled Dungeon World game but I'm drawing a blank on goals and possible challenges Is the focus on hack-and-slash zombie slaughtering, post-apocalypse survival and resource collection, or Walking Dead-style social drama?
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Aug 30, 2014 18:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:Can I get some ideas on plot hooks or outlines for a zombie / Walking Dead type scenario? I'm thinking of running an FAE or houseruled Dungeon World game but I'm drawing a blank on goals and possible challenges FAE or DW are both pretty high-powered systems - PCs will naturally be more suited to 'mowing them down in droves' than to 'omg, there's three of them!'. Work with that, and have old-school shuffle-zombies that the players can destroy by the bus-load, with only [mutant strain, etc, insert justification for 'special' ones] as anything more than a passing threat. I think a lot will depend on how far after the outbreak it is - in terms of story, it'll just be hunting for supplies, clearing buildings, raids into zombie turf, to start with - lots of combat, but not so much story. The world is one giant dungeon crawl, and I guess most of the drama is going to be between PCs and the occasional other survivor or even totally inter-party. Eventually they're going to be starting to rebuild, and come into inevitable conflict with other groups of survivors, wannabe warlords and the like. Those meds the players stockpiled during the looting? Well, now a random kid comes to them with a bad leg, needs some of those meds. Then she vanishes. Next week, she's back, leading a mob who demand a fair share of the meds. If animals are effected by the zombieness, the world's going to be very different (no dogs, horses, cattle, even fishing and wool clothes are out) than if it's just people. The players are probably going to try and find out what caused it (and who's to blame) soon enough, so well-placed hints early on can tie in nicely. Maybe if they get hold of the Macguffin at Evilcorp they can create an antivirus to wipe the zombies out for good - but they'll need to get the power back on first. I think one potential problem would be if players sign up for 'beat up zombies and loot shops', and the game becomes more about the human politics, or vice-versa. If you start with combat, I guess there'll just have to be lots of warlords and 'clear out the power station' type things to keep the tone consistent.
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Aug 30, 2014 18:51
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So, the Stepford Wives town dominated by a religious theocracy is having its grand solstice celebration coming up. The rebels are obviously going to have some kind of massive attack planned. They are small in number, but pretty dedicated, so they'd want to do something huge and showy. I think fire is kind of cliche, so I'm trying to come up with some other grand gesture that the party would have to stop.
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Aug 31, 2014 17:25
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Wasps. Millions of wasps.
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Aug 31, 2014 17:52
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With a rebel insect shaman werewasp leading the charge.
opulent fountain fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Aug 31, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 18:31
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There is something poetic about a religious theocracy being attacked by a plague.
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Aug 31, 2014 18:37
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Aug 31, 2014 18:42
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Pig's blood is a classic.
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Aug 31, 2014 21:48
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Writer Cath posted:So, the Stepford Wives town dominated by a religious theocracy is having its grand solstice celebration coming up. The rebels are obviously going to have some kind of massive attack planned. They are small in number, but pretty dedicated, so they'd want to do something huge and showy. A giant stampede, complete with opportunities to surf the cattle and have fights while jumping across a moving landscape. S.J. fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Aug 31, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 22:30
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Messing with buttoned-down theocracy? For my money, it's gotta be drugged food/water to make the party get way out of hand.
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Aug 31, 2014 22:36
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PublicOpinion posted:Messing with buttoned-down theocracy? For my money, it's gotta be drugged food/water to make the party get way out of hand. The rebels are pretty much in the right, although they did hire a maniac assassin. So far the theocracy's been cutting out peoples' tongues and then feeding them to a colossal Mimic.
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Aug 31, 2014 23:55
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