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chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Also, adding difficulty to the hack and pointing out that it's not as simple as "roll the dice and you win" can encourage the players to take some more creative action. Such as in the aforementioned "You need to run a brute force password generator or find something good to try and crack it" example, the players may decide not to bother with the frustration of trying and failing to break in or not want to waste time and go for social engineering or good ol' fashioned burglary.

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S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

I would suggest making the hacking environment important as well - don't just sit in a van, but there are various physical locations you have to get into and bring your hardware with in order to successfully hack your objective.

Jackard
Oct 28, 2007

We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

S.J. posted:

I would suggest making the hacking environment important as well - don't just sit in a van, but there are various physical locations you have to get into and bring your hardware with in order to successfully hack your objective.
Lower yourself from the vents into a highsec vault!?

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

S.J. posted:

I would suggest making the hacking environment important as well - don't just sit in a van, but there are various physical locations you have to get into and bring your hardware with in order to successfully hack your objective.

If you're going the realistic route, sitting in a van probably won't do much good in the first place. There's a limit to how much you can access from wi-fi.

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

Jackard posted:

Lower yourself from the vents into a highsec vault!?

:getin:

The Libearian
Nov 24, 2007
Return your books or face mauling
Cheers for all the suggestions everyone!

Will have a chat with the player and see if we can work out some combination of the above that should be challenging rather than tedious for him but without making every attempt too much of a covert mission that would distract from everyone else's play.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I had a plan to do a Halloween one-shot for my group, which fell through, but we are playing our regular game on Halloween and by complete coincidence (honestly!) we left the party shacked up in a hut in the middle of the woods at nightfall. I don't think I could even have come up with a better premise for a dedicated one-shot.

First thing I thought of was a slasher movie adventure but this crowd isn't going to go in for anything where they get picked off one by one. It's a 4E game, as well, so combat is pretty much the name of the game. Anything appropriate I can watch for inspiration?

Shoombo
Jan 1, 2013

My Lovely Horse posted:

I had a plan to do a Halloween one-shot for my group, which fell through, but we are playing our regular game on Halloween and by complete coincidence (honestly!) we left the party shacked up in a hut in the middle of the woods at nightfall. I don't think I could even have come up with a better premise for a dedicated one-shot.

First thing I thought of was a slasher movie adventure but this crowd isn't going to go in for anything where they get picked off one by one. It's a 4E game, as well, so combat is pretty much the name of the game. Anything appropriate I can watch for inspiration?

Army of Darkness? Especially the part where Ash goes through the woods to get to the graveyard and shacks up in a cabin and it turns back into Evil Dead for a bit.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

My Lovely Horse posted:

I had a plan to do a Halloween one-shot for my group, which fell through, but we are playing our regular game on Halloween and by complete coincidence (honestly!) we left the party shacked up in a hut in the middle of the woods at nightfall. I don't think I could even have come up with a better premise for a dedicated one-shot.

First thing I thought of was a slasher movie adventure but this crowd isn't going to go in for anything where they get picked off one by one. It's a 4E game, as well, so combat is pretty much the name of the game. Anything appropriate I can watch for inspiration?

Try the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake for something combat-heavy. The most important part of combat-heavy horror is starting out with confusion on the part of the players as they try to figure out what's what, then climaxing with a massive and creative battle sequence that lets them all get their kill on. In the case of that film, they spend most of the time cooped up in isolation and dealing with problems before finally deciding to break out and slaughtering everything in their path (taking casualties the whole way).

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



Why not run a quick micro-session with pre-generated victim characters who get massacred horribly - and then send the PCs to figure out what happened?

Basically steal the format used by Law & Order, the X-Files, etc. You'll seed the concept that some deadly thing is present (it ate four characters already!) and you can seamlessly work it in as a flashback to the last people who stayed at this cabin.

MaliciousOnion
Sep 23, 2009

Ignorance, the root of all evil
Why not something of a cross between From Dusk Till Dawn and House of Leaves? Have doors start appearing where there weren't any, with vampires (or other suitably Halloween-ish monsters) popping out. It turns out the shack is sentient, feeding on travellers who are unlucky enough to rest within It's walls, and the party can't leave the cursed shack until they cleanse it of the evil presence at the centre of the house.

fosborb
Dec 15, 2006



Chronic Good Poster
That is Baba Yaga's shack.

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
Any tips on running an open-world game?

I'm writing a campaign about a newly-risen island that's got some ruins, some settlements (due to stasis), a evil god creature thing to defeat in the center of it, and a few goals for the players to complete to have some sort of arc (find answers to the island, discover a key to unlock a temple that's part of a sealing ritual, enter the center and destroy the god dude) but except for a kind of timeline, the players are free to wander about and do what they will in whatever order they wish.

I'm planning on having a number of places of interest that they may stumble upon, such as a haunted pirate ship, a den full of...some sort of creatures, maybe a powerful creature's lair, as well as a couple NPCs scattered around the place, like a mad wizard, a dragon, maybe a small pirate's lair that's getting started, as well as their home outpost.

I'm also having a mechanic that's similar to something Penny Arcade did a while ago, where they have a certain number of 'actions' they can perform each day, whether that's move, explore the area, recover, that sort of thing. These actions will start small, but grow as their resources get better, such as stronger mounts or improved rations.

I'm just not really sure how to write this. What I plan to do is just draw the map and write out the encounters available on the island, then drawing out a bunch of timelines/dates for things that change over time spent while on the island (maybe the kobold tribe will be taken out by the rampaging cannibals, or something). Any suggestions for this sort of thing? It's pretty much the first open-world thing I've planned out, so I'm worried that I'd be somehow pushing my players down a particular rail-roady path.

fosborb
Dec 15, 2006



Chronic Good Poster

Morpheus posted:

Any suggestions for this sort of thing? It's pretty much the first open-world thing I've planned out, so I'm worried that I'd be somehow pushing my players down a particular rail-roady path.

In my experience, players will find the pirate ship first, and then proceed to bomb all areas of interest from the shore before sailing off into uncharted territory. But maybe your players are more reasonable.

Fronts are a quick way to organize forces that should continue to grow and evolve if players are not directly confronting them. http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/fronts

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

fosborb posted:

In my experience, players will find the pirate ship first, and then proceed to bomb all areas of interest from the shore before sailing off into uncharted territory. But maybe your players are more reasonable.

Fronts are a quick way to organize forces that should continue to grow and evolve if players are not directly confronting them. http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/fronts

Nah - although you did give me an idea to have them clear out the ship to make it useable, it won't be initially for some reason I'll think up - people I play with are really good about following a DM's lead, within reason. While each encounter or mini-plot is a toss-up as to how they'll handle it, I've never seen them derail anything for more than half a session or so.

Also, the island is surrounded by some very, very hard-to-navigate waters. Dagon's followers have started acting up with the rising of the island, which is causing some hell for the waters surrounding this place (the campaign starts with them shipwrecking while on the way to the outpost).

Edit: Not really a fan of this 'Front' stuff. I understand what it's trying to get across, but it seems to be doing it in such a bookish and administrative manner that it's just...eh. Like, I don't need a list of Custom Moves or Grim Portents - it seems like they're just assigning unnecessary terms to regular ol' campaign lingo. Also it's really confusing to read.

That's a really good idea, yeah.
\/\/\/\/\/

Morpheus fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Oct 27, 2014

Bad Munki
Nov 4, 2008

We're all mad here.


Morpheus posted:

it won't be initially for some reason I'll think up

It's caught on a sand bar at the mouth of the river, which is only there because the river has been dammed up upstream at an orc encampment further inland, messing up the flow of the river. Destroying the drat will release the small body of water that has backed up there which will wash out the sand bar and free the ship. And possibly cause some other issues as well as the deluge floods the river.

petrol blue
Feb 9, 2013

sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

Morpheus posted:

What I plan to do is just draw the map and write out the encounters available on the island, then drawing out a bunch of timelines/dates for things that change over time spent while on the island (maybe the kobold tribe will be taken out by the rampaging cannibals, or something). Any suggestions for this sort of thing? It's pretty much the first open-world thing I've planned out, so I'm worried that I'd be somehow pushing my players down a particular rail-roady path.

For our current Dungeon World campaign, the GM printed out a hex map with our current location on it, and told us to just add sites of interest - so we ended up with things like "magical vortex", "happy smiling friendly halfling village", "humant colony" and so on. We've not had a chance to explore the majority of them, but getting players involved in world-gen is never a bad move.

I wouldn't worry too much about a strict timeline, because players probably won't put the parts of the hidden story together, meaning it's time you could have spent on other stuff. Just keep a vague track of the major players and what they're trying to do at the moment, and it should be fine.

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

petrol blue posted:

For our current Dungeon World campaign, the GM printed out a hex map with our current location on it, and told us to just add sites of interest - so we ended up with things like "magical vortex", "happy smiling friendly halfling village", "humant colony" and so on. We've not had a chance to explore the majority of them, but getting players involved in world-gen is never a bad move.

I wouldn't worry too much about a strict timeline, because players probably won't put the parts of the hidden story together, meaning it's time you could have spent on other stuff. Just keep a vague track of the major players and what they're trying to do at the moment, and it should be fine.

Oh no, I hate that hidden timeline stuff. Paizo puts it in way too much of their campaigns, and as a player in them I find it impossible to know what's going on half the time because of it. Pain in the rear end. This'll be stuff like "A year after arriving, the ancient golem will move to attack the outpost unless the players already found it and disabled it" or "Three months after the Cheliax force is discovered, an envoy is sent to converse". That sort of stuff. Nothing hidden, only stuff that the players actually will see, to make it feel more like this is stuff that is happening, that it's not just a universe that revolves around them and their actions.

I will likely get my players involved in generating some of the world, but more like they'll be giving me ideas. I'll ask them what exists on the island, modify it to fit their goals and the world, and place it somewhere on the island that they won't know of until they explore it. The big theme of the game will be discovering why the island sank, why it rose up again, and who is still on it and why.

Morpheus fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 27, 2014

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Morpheus posted:

Edit: Not really a fan of this 'Front' stuff. I understand what it's trying to get across, but it seems to be doing it in such a bookish and administrative manner that it's just...eh. Like, I don't need a list of Custom Moves or Grim Portents - it seems like they're just assigning unnecessary terms to regular ol' campaign lingo. Also it's really confusing to read.

Fronts is more of a concept and less of a set of mechanics that the DW books might make them sound like.

You're on an island. The Mermen are invading from the southwest, the Lich just woke up in the southeast, and there's a dragon flying in from the north. You can handle any one of them and can completely end the merman 'arc' within 3-4 sessions, but that means that the other two will get to expand in the meantime. As you're defeating the second threat, you're already hearing whispers of a new set of threats. By the time the Lich is banished, the dragon is slain and the Mermen driven off, your island has a new set of things to worry about - but the party is also stronger so the scope and scale of what they're going to be tackling has also increased.

However quickly you want to make the other 2 expand while the party is handling the one threat that they want to focus on is up to you. Heck, you might not even make the party aware of the other 2 threats if they just latch on to the Mermen plot and go straight for the beach, but the key is that you set-up 'future badness' to force the party to react, and you set-up multiple sources of future badness so that the party doesn't have to react to the one thing you had in mind.

It took me a while to get this too, because yes the DW book is written in such a way that it makes you feel like you have to adopt their own jargon and abide by their set of rules, when it's really just a way of thinking.

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER
I'm running a Mage the Awakening game Wednesday. Anyone got any tips on running a horror-type game, either of Mage or generic tips?

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

gradenko_2000 posted:

Fronts is more of a concept and less of a set of mechanics that the DW books might make them sound like.

You're on an island. The Mermen are invading from the southwest, the Lich just woke up in the southeast, and there's a dragon flying in from the north. You can handle any one of them and can completely end the merman 'arc' within 3-4 sessions, but that means that the other two will get to expand in the meantime. As you're defeating the second threat, you're already hearing whispers of a new set of threats. By the time the Lich is banished, the dragon is slain and the Mermen driven off, your island has a new set of things to worry about - but the party is also stronger so the scope and scale of what they're going to be tackling has also increased.

However quickly you want to make the other 2 expand while the party is handling the one threat that they want to focus on is up to you. Heck, you might not even make the party aware of the other 2 threats if they just latch on to the Mermen plot and go straight for the beach, but the key is that you set-up 'future badness' to force the party to react, and you set-up multiple sources of future badness so that the party doesn't have to react to the one thing you had in mind.

It took me a while to get this too, because yes the DW book is written in such a way that it makes you feel like you have to adopt their own jargon and abide by their set of rules, when it's really just a way of thinking.

A similar concept is "Write events, not plots." If you try to plot out how everything will advance, you'll inevitably fail unless you have the strictest railroading possible. PCs never do as you expect them to and likely won't think to do what you're hinting at. Instead, you give them hooks and plan out in the background what events happen while they're acting. So the plot continues moving forward as they do whatever, and they have to respond to changes. Sometimes you get to directly tell the PCs what happened while they were doing something else, and sometimes you just have to wait until they stumble upon it themselves.

For instance, I'm writing a monster/ghost hunter campaign (heavily inspired by Supernatural and the Dresden Files) with the first mission being investigating and stopping the apparent return of the angry ghost of a hanged murderer in small town West Virginia, as the local high school built their football field where he was executed and buried. While planning out the session, I realized that there was essentially no way to actually get the players to do as I intended them. So instead of trying to write specific encounters and directing them, I wrote generally to open up possibilities. Instead of writing up how they go up to the high school students who saw the ghost and pretending to be federal agents to question them about where the victims' bodies are buried, I establish (in my own GM notes) where the necessary remains to destroy are and how different kinds of people around town will react to the questioning. So they can go up to the students who saw the ghost, their peers, the police, question random locals, etc. and wing it from there.

But back to the subject of "write events", the haunting continues as the players go on. Inevitably, a student will be killed by the ghost the day after they get informed about the haunting. Where they establish their characters to be in the country at the time determines how long it takes them to get to town, and even if they arrive on time they may delay investigating or fail to figure things out for so long that someone dies. More people die as the events go on, hastening the sense of urgency to solve the mystery and eliminate the haunting; it also makes the police more and more jumpy about skulking around the haunting site as they now risk being mistaken for the killer if caught. I also established (something they can find out as they investigate) that the day they get the news is the day of the high school's big fall football game against their rivals, and the next night is the school's Homecoming dance. Both of these activities go on whether or not the hunters are there to witness them or even find out that they're happening, as is the appearance of the ghost at those times.

Simply put, life goes on and the ghost keeps doing its thing whether or not the hunters are progressing. The off-screen events may open up new leads, but it may also hamper them.

chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Oct 28, 2014

nesbit37
Dec 12, 2003
Emperor of Rome
(500 BC - 500 AD)
I'm doing something new for me and running a quasi open world campaign for D&D 5e using modules from pretty much any and all other systems that I am converting over. This is in large part because my group wanted me to run a game and I was interested in but I don't have time right now to do a strictly custom campaign, so this was the compromise I came up with for my time available.

Its going well so far with them plopped in a section of Ferun from Forgotten Realms running through part of Rappan Athuk working for an artwork and cultural artifacts collector to start. I am a little worried they are going to dump that hook I have set up for them though, and am trying to find a good set of adventurers I can start to convert over to be ready for what the players throw at me. The party is 5th level, so I am looking for any favorites you might have of modules from any system that I can make fit into a D&D esque campaign that would be good for parties in the range of say level 4 - 8. I know I could convert easier/harder modules down but that's more work than I have available to put into this at the moment. Suggestions?

MANIFEST DESTINY
Apr 24, 2009

Does anyone have, or have links to, favorite random events/encounters from any fantasy rpg settings? I've come up with a short list to use in my first GM'ing experience (Dungeon World) but I've been looking for more, and googling for lists mostly turns up people complaining about random monsters that pop up in computer rpg systems. I'm looking for things the players can encounter between named places on the map, such as places of power, hermits, witch huts, wandering npcs etc that give them interesting choices to make or a mini quest, not always just something to fight.

petrol blue
Feb 9, 2013

sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

MANIFEST DESTINY posted:

Does anyone have, or have links to, favorite random events/encounters from any fantasy rpg settings?

If you can get hold of it, the ultimate toolbox has tons of random tables for everything, and is great inspiration fuel. Failing that, a look through the memorable games thread might provide ideas that've worked for other people.

E: Another possibility is to ask the players: "You run into a weird traveller along the road. What was it about them that made them stand out?"

petrol blue fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Oct 28, 2014

UrbanLabyrinth
Jan 28, 2009

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence


College Slice

MANIFEST DESTINY posted:

Does anyone have, or have links to, favorite random events/encounters from any fantasy rpg settings? I've come up with a short list to use in my first GM'ing experience (Dungeon World) but I've been looking for more, and googling for lists mostly turns up people complaining about random monsters that pop up in computer rpg systems. I'm looking for things the players can encounter between named places on the map, such as places of power, hermits, witch huts, wandering npcs etc that give them interesting choices to make or a mini quest, not always just something to fight.

If you can get your hands on a copy, there were at least two sets of Decks of Encounters for D&D 2E.

MANIFEST DESTINY
Apr 24, 2009

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

If you can get your hands on a copy, there were at least two sets of Decks of Encounters for D&D 2E.

Found one of them on ebay for a reasonable price, seemed worth getting from the samples I could find, so thanks!


In other news, someone here clued me into to the idea of making tokens using binder clips, so I thought I'd post jpegs of the templates I made. I set these up in photoshop to print onto inexpensive photo paper, which I fold over, so they're doublesided and sturdy enough. They look great, and they're sized to match the average height of minifigs.

If you want the original pdfs to mess around with them let me know.

Album of the seven sheets I've made so far:

http://imgur.com/a/EA1az

Sample:

MANIFEST DESTINY fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Oct 29, 2014

Jackard
Oct 28, 2007

We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It
Looks good, much less expensive and effort involved than figurines. I get my stuff printed at an OfficeDepot or something so I don't have to worry about ink or printing errors.

Foolster41
Aug 2, 2013

"It's a non-speaking role"
(Please don't read if you're in my spellslinger game)


So, I know this is short notice considering my next session is tomorrow at 12:30(PST), but I'm toying with an idea that the party comes upon a sort of dark circus, inspired by the song "greatest show unearthed" and also the star-trek voyager "the thaw". Basically each is separately confronted with their greatest fear and given a chance at some tempting great desire at a price, basically each is given a chance to make a deal with the devil. Is this a dumb/cliche idea? Any suggestions on how I'd do the deals for interesting "compels" later (called in favors basically)? Does this not work if too many people accept? How big should the expected later favors be compared to what they do. (For example, I was considering offering a healing boost to the party healer as one).

I asked what each party member desires and fears. One said he fears being forgotten, and I'm not sure how to make that an interesting encounter.


For context, character hopes/fears.

Doc Ironsides: killed his father when he wanted him to hobble a striking worker, and fears for the people he left behind. Wants most to heal and help people.
Nathan Green: Is turning into a wolf-man, and wants it to stop.
Jonny Bates: Was turned into a robot by gnomes, and wants to turn back.
Jackengill: Talks to guns and machines. Fears the voices stopping.
Cornertooth: Fears not making any impact on the world. Also bees.


Oh, also, is splitting a party a really bad idea, even if they do each individual encounters that should be fairly quickly? I'm thinking a bunch of 5v1 encounters are going to be hard to balance well and be less interesting if they can help each other out.


Edit: realized accidental reading could happen, so spoilered it.
Edit 2: Added more info on chars for context.

Foolster41 fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Oct 29, 2014

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

Foolster41 posted:

(Please don't read if you're in my spellslinger game)


So, I know this is short notice considering my next session is tomorrow at 12:30(PST), but I'm toying with an idea that the party comes upon a sort of dark circus, inspired by the song "greatest show unearthed" and also the star-trek voyager "the thaw". Basically each is separately confronted with their greatest fear and given a chance at some tempting great desire at a price, basically each is given a chance to make a deal with the devil. Is this a dumb/cliche idea? Any suggestions on how I'd do the deals for interesting "compels" later (called in favors basically)? Does this not work if too many people accept? How big should the expected later favors be compared to what they do. (For example, I was considering offering a healing boost to the party healer as one).

I asked what each party member desires and fears. One said he fears being forgotten, and I'm not sure how to make that an interesting encounter.


For context, character hopes/fears.

Doc Ironsides: killed his father when he wanted him to hobble a striking worker, and fears for the people he left behind. Wants most to heal and help people.
Nathan Green: Is turning into a wolf-man, and wants it to stop.
Jonny Bates: Was turned into a robot by gnomes, and wants to turn back.
Jackengill: Talks to guns and machines. Fears the voices stopping.
Cornertooth: Fears not making any impact on the world. Also bees.


Oh, also, is splitting a party a really bad idea, even if they do each individual encounters that should be fairly quickly? I'm thinking a bunch of 5v1 encounters are going to be hard to balance well and be less interesting if they can help each other out.


Edit: realized accidental reading could happen, so spoilered it.
Edit 2: Added more info on chars for context.

This sounds rad as gently caress.

Also, though, you should really, really, really prepare for the possibility of PCs accepting the devil's deal and one or more of your party members becoming faustian superheros.

Talmonis
Jun 24, 2012
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.
Edit: Sorry, wrong thread.

Deltasquid
Apr 10, 2013

awww...
you guys made me ink!


THUNDERDOME

Foolster41 posted:

(Please don't read if you're in my spellslinger game)


So, I know this is short notice considering my next session is tomorrow at 12:30(PST), but I'm toying with an idea that the party comes upon a sort of dark circus, inspired by the song "greatest show unearthed" and also the star-trek voyager "the thaw". Basically each is separately confronted with their greatest fear and given a chance at some tempting great desire at a price, basically each is given a chance to make a deal with the devil. Is this a dumb/cliche idea? Any suggestions on how I'd do the deals for interesting "compels" later (called in favors basically)? Does this not work if too many people accept? How big should the expected later favors be compared to what they do. (For example, I was considering offering a healing boost to the party healer as one).

I asked what each party member desires and fears. One said he fears being forgotten, and I'm not sure how to make that an interesting encounter.


Take a look at the shadows of the main cast in persona 4.. (Spoilered because if one of your players has played that, they'll know what you're planning.) Basically, this isn't a bad idea, and you can totally make it 5 vs 1 if you make the encounters segmented and throw in some related fears as side-bosses. poo poo, it'd be pretty powerful if your cast can only overcome their fears with the help of their friends. That's basically the entire theme of persona 4. As for the guy being afraid of being forgotten, how about them helping a useless NPC adventurer from the past perform a great deed like slay a (possibly watered down) dragon or something, after which bards sing tales about him? That way your character's fear can be resolved simply by doing what he does best; adventure, kick rear end and end up being a folk legend.

m.hache
Dec 1, 2004


Fun Shoe

Deltasquid posted:

Take a look at the shadows of the main cast in persona 4.. (Spoilered because if one of your players has played that, they'll know what you're planning.) Basically, this isn't a bad idea, and you can totally make it 5 vs 1 if you make the encounters segmented and throw in some related fears as side-bosses. poo poo, it'd be pretty powerful if your cast can only overcome their fears with the help of their friends. That's basically the entire theme of persona 4. As for the guy being afraid of being forgotten, how about them helping a useless NPC adventurer from the past perform a great deed like slay a (possibly watered down) dragon or something, after which bards sing tales about him? That way your character's fear can be resolved simply by doing what he does best; adventure, kick rear end and end up being a folk legend.

Or maybe have him be presented an illusion where his group is leaving him behind and they can't hear him scream or something.

Iunnrais
Jul 25, 2007

It's gaelic.

Deltasquid posted:

poo poo, it'd be pretty powerful if your cast can only overcome their fears with the help of their friends.

I haven't played persona 4, but this is correct. One way to hammer this point is to force them to fight their fears 1 on 1 at first in a quick series of split-the-party fights, and crush them with it. Then, after going through all of your players like this, go back to the first but allow him to see one of his friends. Running away from his fear would never work, but running TO the fear of his friend DEFINITELY works. After you do this with the first, allow all the others to join, and make it a normal Party-vs-Monster fight, then go back and do all the others.

Foolster41
Aug 2, 2013

"It's a non-speaking role"
Sadly we didn't have time to run this this week, but I'm looking forward to running this next week. One of my players cryptically commented how he is looking forward to next week, and was asked by another player if he's been PMing with the GM. Party paranoia, the GM loves it. :)

Deadlypudding: Yeah, it seems like it'd be interesting if one took the deal, but
if more than one, or even all it kind of looses it's unique edge.


I think I'm leaning towards just running all the encounters with the full party together. I have some pretty good ideas of how I'm going to do this. Thanks for the input everyone!

---

Now, another question. I'm toying with running a more sandbox/open world type game (run as PbP) in the FATE system basically setting in a near-future dystopia, taking inspriation mostly from the 2001 anime "Metropolis", but also from the 1927 film, Blade Runner (1984), I,Robot (2006), and the webcomic short series "Automata".

I realize this could be crazy to track, but I was thinking there would be no set parties or anything and the idea is the players just explore and build and destroy as they want, and basicly each player is just another player, sort of in the style of something like Paranoia, Fiasco or (as I understand it) World of Darkness/Vampire. I'm also kind of inspiring this off of a few no-rules freeform roleplays I ran on other forums. I would build conflicts (including NPCS) based on what they say they want the characters to do and their troubles.

The problem is, FATE kind of assumes a party in the way characters are created in their multi-step system, which I'm not sure would make sense the way I want to run this. Could I just ask the players choose 3 interesting aspects to use as aspects (that are neutrally phrased so neither outright good or bad)? Is this changing too much how the game works and FATE not a good fit for this? If so, any good system suggestions? Is this just too crazy an idea?

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

Foolster41 posted:

Sadly we didn't have time to run this this week, but I'm looking forward to running this next week. One of my players cryptically commented how he is looking forward to next week, and was asked by another player if he's been PMing with the GM. Party paranoia, the GM loves it. :)

Deadlypudding: Yeah, it seems like it'd be interesting if one took the deal, but
if more than one, or even all it kind of looses it's unique edge.


I think I'm leaning towards just running all the encounters with the full party together. I have some pretty good ideas of how I'm going to do this. Thanks for the input everyone!

---

Now, another question. I'm toying with running a more sandbox/open world type game (run as PbP) in the FATE system basically setting in a near-future dystopia, taking inspriation mostly from the 2001 anime "Metropolis", but also from the 1927 film, Blade Runner (1984), I,Robot (2006), and the webcomic short series "Automata".

I realize this could be crazy to track, but I was thinking there would be no set parties or anything and the idea is the players just explore and build and destroy as they want, and basicly each player is just another player, sort of in the style of something like Paranoia, Fiasco or (as I understand it) World of Darkness/Vampire. I'm also kind of inspiring this off of a few no-rules freeform roleplays I ran on other forums. I would build conflicts (including NPCS) based on what they say they want the characters to do and their troubles.

The problem is, FATE kind of assumes a party in the way characters are created in their multi-step system, which I'm not sure would make sense the way I want to run this. Could I just ask the players choose 3 interesting aspects to use as aspects (that are neutrally phrased so neither outright good or bad)? Is this changing too much how the game works and FATE not a good fit for this? If so, any good system suggestions? Is this just too crazy an idea?

That is absolutely a thing you can do in FATE, and is pretty much what you have to do for NPCs or players who enter the game at a later point.

My party is completely split something like 60% of the time in the FATE campaign I'm running, and it still works out okay because their "encounters" resolve pretty quickly, and they touch base every once in a while to collaborate about their investigation. The campaign is pretty much 60% "okay, what are you guys doing with your day" and 40% "poo poo got real and you guys have to survive this gauntlet of monsters and horrors".

Once they resolve the current story arc, I'm gonna start turning their friends and family members into monsters with slow-burn reveals that involve sudden improvements in competence and weird personality flip-flops :unsmigghh:

But yeah, most courses of action in FATE that aren't like fancy setpiece conflicts can be resolved in like 3-5 skill rolls once everybody figures out how the scene is going to be played out, and the results of those rolls determine the finer details. It's pretty easy to bounce between players in a series of shorter scenes, especially if you're doing investigation-type stuff.

m.hache
Dec 1, 2004


Fun Shoe
So I'm looking to bring a grid to our game so we can determine distance relatively easy.

What sort of materials have you used to create these grids? I'm thinking almost using a dry erase board but drawing up the grid lines in permanent marker so I can still use the dry erase to set boundaries.

Bad Munki
Nov 4, 2008

We're all mad here.


Could just get a battle mat, they usually have squares on one side and hexes on the other. You draw on them with overhead markers.

The only problem with the dry erase board is actually a protip for dry erase boards in general: if you ever mark on a dry erase board with a permanent marker (such as a sharpie) you can remove the mark by taking a dry erase marker, drawing over the line, and then wiping it off before the mark dries. Removes permanent marks like magic. Great for the conference room where someone hosed up, not so great if you draw something on your battle board, decide to change it real quick, and then realize a moment later you just removed half your grid in a few quick swipes on some still-wet marker.

Lallander
Sep 11, 2001

When a problem comes along,
you must whip it.

m.hache posted:

So I'm looking to bring a grid to our game so we can determine distance relatively easy.

http://thenoteboard.com/

Get one of these. They're great.
There are other similar products of course. I just love how portable this one is.

Babylon Astronaut
Apr 19, 2012
Paizo makes a baller battlemat. The one that comes with the pathfinder starter set has worked really well for me using wet erase markers. I even left it written on and packed up for almost a year and it erased with no stains at all.

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Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
For my open world game I'm going to use a Chessex battlemat, with a four-pack of differently-colored markers. Hopefully it doesn't rub off too much when I roll it up between sessions.

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