|
DrOgreface posted:Ok, first time DM here, about to start my first campaign. I wanted to run an idea past somebody before I do it. I have a PC whose family caravan was destroyed by orcs (the only background hook of her PC). On the first night she's back in that area, I want her to have a nightmare about it like this: while she's asleep, I'll say she wakes up and that the person on watch fell asleep. Orcs (too many to be a fair fight) have crept into the camp. Combat will ensue as normal, and at some point she'll be grappled by an Orc. As it shakes her, she'll wake up being shaken by a PC at the undisturbed camp. I'll pass notes to the other PCs beforehand so they'll be in on it, so if they want to act out of character and do things like just hide, run away, or attack suicidally they can. Doing otherwise runs a BIG risk of you coming off like a complete cock.
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 11:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 21:01 |
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:It's a great way to have fun, provided you talk to everyone about it first, including the player concerned. I agree. Here's a different way you might be able to make it work: Do the same thing, but don't tell the other players first - don't tell anyone. Make the fight overwhelmingly difficult, and make the terrain different from where they went to sleep. Any time after one other PC has died but before the PC who is dreaming has died, do the grapple-shake-wake-up sequence with one of the dead PCs doing the shaking. They've all had the same dream. It's clearly related to the PC in question because she recognised the altered area - it was the family caravan. There's no actual HP loss or expended resources from the fight, but stress that everyone's extra tired. It wasn't just "real-feeling", it was somehow semi-real and seemed to be getting realer the longer it went on, like details filling in, smells appearing, etc. Now they've got a side-plot to investigate. Maybe the dreamlands are leaking. Maybe there's more to her backstory than what she knows. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 11:55
|
|
|
Cool, thanks for the advice. It's a D&D campaign, but with horror/Lovecraftian themes. I'm not sure how to work in questionable reality type stuff without being dickish. I do like the idea of a shared dream, I can use the terrain difference to imply the falseness and also throw in foreshadowing of the campaign arc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 22:00
|
|
|
DrOgreface posted:Cool, thanks for the advice. It's a D&D campaign, but with horror/Lovecraftian themes. I'm not sure how to work in questionable reality type stuff without being dickish. The outer planes in D&D are essentially gestalt embodiments of a shared dream, organized by their outlooks on morality. I'd really check out what you could use from Planescape and the Planar 2nd edition books for fluffy nuggets to pilfer. But Hey, I gotza question. Right. So, running aboleth big bad. As a DM it's kinda unfair to dominate other players for more than a round or two, right? Seems like a whole lotta no fun for that player, even if it's what the monster would do. Is there a way to make this fun? Or should I avoid it? God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Jan 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2015 13:36
|
|
|
One thing that I found worked for me in one particular combat was to allow the domination to grant ADDITIONAL actions that are controlled by the big bad, instead of taking away the player's turn. That is to say, the player still gets their turn, but on the aboleth's turn (or on a seperate initiative count if you want to let the aboleth still act independantly) the player is moved and controlled as well. So they need to set themselves up in a position where they can do the least harm, while still doing what they can to fight. My players enjoyed it, though balance can be tricky. In 4th Edition in particular, monster math and PC math are two completely different beasts, and things can get funky.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2015 14:14
|
|
|
Agreed that domination sucks. Could you let the player still control the character, just on the Ab's side? Depends how much you can trust the players, I guess, but might alleviate the nothing-to-do problem.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2015 17:16
|
|
|
petrol blue posted:Agreed that domination sucks. Could you let the player still control the character, just on the Ab's side? Depends how much you can trust the players, I guess, but might alleviate the nothing-to-do problem. Yeah, this depends on the group. Some players love conspiracy poo poo and will work with you all day when you decide to have a Doppleganger infiltrate the party disguised as their character, and you can trust them to be real conniving motherfuckers to the party if you tell them, "You failed your save and now you're on Team Aboleth". Others get pissed because the DM told them they have to do something. Your mileage may vary.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2015 17:20
|
|
|
.
shitty poker hand fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 00:19
|
|
|
.
shitty poker hand fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 00:19
|
|
|
I'm doing a guest GM session in somebody else's Pathfinder game next week. Today's aspects are Cthulhu + Nazis + Tora Bora +Shambala from Uncharted 2. Here's what I've got so far. "The Rudra Peaks are a land ruled over by sacred Azatas. Long ago, a god-king from the stars descended in a chariot of fire and claimed the mountains as his new home. He enslaved the locals and ranged outward, conquering an oppressive empire. However, the tide was turned when the prayers of the god-king's victims were answered and holy champions crossed over from the celestial spheres to fight the tyrant. Many of the god-king's soldiers were magically enslaved, and they rallied to aid the Azatas after being set free. Unfortunately, killing their enemy proved to be a problem. The god-king regenerated from most injuries, and the repercussions of his death curse would probably melt the brains of thousands of innocent people. For lack of a better solution, the azatas forced him into eternal sleep and sealed off the remnants of his strange palaces under heavy guard. Then they turned their focus to helping the old empire's victims. Over the course of the next few centuries, the people of the mountains turned to outright worship of the Azatas, constructing monolithic temples and forming monasteries. The Azatas ensured good weather for agriculture, cared for the injured, and called down terrible storms to drive off enemies. The bad old days are forgotten, mostly. Azatas can be a capricious lot, though they are certainly nicer masters than many of the monsters and mad wizards who have staked out domains around the world. Much of the people's time and energy is devoted to keeping them happy, slowing economic and scientific progress. The Rudra Peaks are also very isolated, since the militant “Storm Lord” azata faction sees the airships used in international trade as a threat to their established power base. Very few airships are allowed in their skies. Enough news and goods come in to stir discontent, and a vocal minority advocates for open borders. To make matters worst, the dreaming Emperor reaches out to other sleepers and promises to bring about a golden age when he is revived. He arms them with knowledge of where to find his old weapons and how to use them, for there are caches and hideouts the azatas never found. The players control agents of the Association for the Propagation of International Trade. APIT is a megacorporation with a monopoly on airships and international journalism. They present themselves as Switzerland, but in practice are more like the USA propping up the Shah in Iran. They're also hampered by the fact that lots of their low-end membership are adventurers primarily interested in making lots of money fast. APIT wants to bring “Free Trade” to the Rudra Peaks. There are lots of rare and valuable minerals, as well as a gray market in designer drugs. Rumors even speak of ancient machines that still work, like fully functional prosthetic arms and pistols that shoot beams of fire. But APIT is mostly interested in the rare earths and drugs. And the PCs have been sent to the Rudra Peaks to make contact with a group that might facilitate that. Agni is a god of fire and messengers, who has a history with the god that the Rudra Peaks are named for. His adherents are some of the most vocal advocates for loosening the restrictions on air travel around the mountains. Monasteries dedicated to Agni have staged peaceful protests in most of the local towns, and the newspaper they sponsor is always eager for more information from outside the Peaks. Now, these social pressures have resulted in a special conference, with representatives from multiple Azata factions and several neighboring states. A moderate Stormlord, Count Zepharu, personally escorted three COC airships carrying foreign diplomats in for the conference. Several cells of the terrorist organization now calling themselves the Awakeners see the conference as their opportunity to make contact with the outside world. Surely, if they can show some of these senior diplomats the glory of the Emperor, they will realize He will be a better ruler of the mountains... and perhaps even the world. Where things get complicated is the fact that the trade conference is actually plan B for APIT. Plan A is Professor Ajell, one of APIT's special agents. His cover identity is a professor of anthropology, but Ajell has worn many faces in the course of his spy work. The Azatas are unpredictable rulers, who have been holding back the economy and impeding trade. Giving militant rebels a leg up will replace the uncooperative regime with a warzone, which APIT-sponsored adventurers will find profitable employment in. Ideally, whichever faction comes out on top will be sufficiently indebted to their agents that senior APIT officials will be be able to wring out lots of concessions. APIT knows just enough about the Awakeners that they seem like a good catspaw. To finance their operations, the Awakeners run a number of illicit businesses. Human trafficking, skymetal mining, a few sales of energy weapons, but biggest of all is the drugs. The crashed spaceships of the Dreaming Emperor have sophisticated pharmaceutical labs, and those that the Awakeners have turned into bases churn out huge quantities of an ichor that functions a lot like heroin. With added susceptibility to getting sucked into an evil dreamscape, of course. Fortunately, the Emperor is weak enough that the magical side effects of the drugs rarely kick in away from the Rudra peaks. Ajell plans to make contact with the Awakeners through one of these businesses, then work his way into one of their strongholds and broker a deal for APIT support. After some initial overtures, Ajell hires a team of guides to take him into one of the Haunted Zones, where Azatas have quietly recruited tribes of Ghost-face Orcs to scare people out before they find any sealed caches of Dreaming Emperor stuff. He's very public about his plans to seek out the legendary Yeti that lurk in the most remote regions of the Rudra Peaks. Then he lures his team into an Awakener ambush, and the party is killed or captured. The extremists refuse to bargain with him until he “shares dreams” with their Emperor, which turns out pretty well for him. Ajell is educated, arrogant, and higher-level than most of the existing cultists. The Dreaming Emperor sorts humanoids into several Nazi-esque tiers of worthiness, and almost immediately decides this new guy is a “superior human” that ought to command the cell. Now Ajell and the former cell leader are bickering over how to proceed, and Ajell has missed a report to his superiors. APIT wants to figure out what happened to their agent, and the PCs are called in as the most qualified people in the area. The PCs don't know that Ajell is an agent of APIT. They don't have the security clearance for that. The PCs have been paid to safeguard the conference, with a line-item in the contract stating they need to make sure that certain foreign nationals are doing all right. Their mission is to find out what happened to this travelling professor, and help him get back to town if necessary. Precise details of where Ajell went can be found by talking to the families of the guides he hired (or though magic / skill checks). One family should be creepy, with multiple cultists offering to interpret PC dreams. One is friendly, and will warn the party that the place is “haunted”, and Yeh-Teh are actually really dangerous if you find them. But knowing where to go shouldn't be particularly difficult. Once in the right area, the PCs will be targeted by Ghost-face orcs trying to scare them off (non-violently), and then eventually ambushed by cultists in radiation-proof yeti suits. Unless the PCs roll really well and find tracks leading to Awakener bases early on. In any case, whether they find cultists or the dungeon entrance first, the other will follow shortly. After fighting the initial group of cultists and finding one of the hidden tunnels leading to their local base, the PCs could go loud and clear out bad guys as they find them, or they could try infiltrating the cult. The yeti suits would be useful either way, since the dungeon is partially made out of spaceship wreckage and wading through pools with glowing blue cubes on the bottom is an unhealthy lifestyle choice. When the PCs find Ajell, there should be some pretty obvious hints that he's crazy. The Dreaming Emperor has deemed him a “Superior man” and made changes to him through the dreamscape. But there is no such thing as free at-will telekinesis. If the party goes loud, he will shriek about them “ruining APIT's plans”, and attack with a gradually escalating combo of psychic and mutation themed powers. If they infiltrate, the lieutenant is still alive and will try to use these outsiders to turn the cell against Ajell. By the time things wrap up, drop lots of hints about the Sleeping Emperor, but also cover a few other subjects. The starspawn who invaded this planet have a base on the moon, where all the inhabitants are currently in cryosleep waiting for news of their general's successful conquest of this puny planet. That's going to be the site of another adventure in a few levels, after the party gets some space-mead and a living insect-shuttle. The PCs end the adventure in possession of a decent amount of wacky sci-fi gear. Possibly more importantly, they've got a decent idea what this region's Dark Secret is, and could use this to political advantage. Optionally, for extra dickery, a few Azatas decide the PCs Know Too Much, and need to be taken out before they tell APIT what they've learned. But in any case, try and figure out what they plan to do with the stuff and how the world around will react. What should prep time be spent on? - Find some squiggly tentacle swastikas or something. Symbols that show you're dealing with Osama von Hitlerthulhu after the party gets into the mystery dungeon. - stat a few cultists, give them a suicide option where they eat a glowing pill and mutate into melee monsters. - a basic dungeon map, loosely modeled on Tora Bora. Make a few cool set-pieces around nuclear containment pools, chemical labs, and giant undead cyborgs." Anybody have ideas for dungeon encounters? I've got the skeleton of a game, but I'm not sure what I want to do with most of the base-exploring phase.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 01:52
|
|
|
I feel like you have way too much stuff there for a single session you're guest GMing. EDIT: Unless you're tying into existing stuff going on in the campaign, I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 06:46
|
|
|
 Sweet mother of boxtext, take a machete to that fucker, that's a campaign, not a game! For a one-off, just give them a job, a complicating factor or two, and a BBEG that's smug enough to hate. RE: mage - if you've played it lots, you already know what works. Just think of moments in games that were really good, and then do that. Think of stuff that sucked, and don't do that. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jan 27, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 15:00
|
|
|
You're right, that is kinda wall-of-texty for something that's supposed to take 4-5 hours. It'll be useful when the main GM takes over the campaign again, but I should have summarized better. How's this: "The party gets hired to find a professor who went missing in the mountains of not-Tibet. It turns out the guy was shady to begin with, but now that he's been kidnapped by space-Nazi cultists he's turned crazy and evil. In the course of taking him out or bringing him back, he drops a lot of hints about conspiracies the party's organization is involved in, and this creates later story hooks in the form of dungeons to investigate and people who think the party Knows Too Much." I'm mainly interested in thinking up some cool dungeon encounters. I tend to handwave Pathfinder combat when it gets tedious, so I figure I can get through at least 6 big set-pieces with plenty of time for the stuff before and after the dungeon. Here's a few rooms I've been working on: - A big room full of sensory deprivation tanks where cultists are dreaming. Weird psychic effects and enemy reinforcements. - Chemical lab full of glowing beakers that do crazy stuff when mixed. There's a giant undead cyborg chained up, which will attack everything when it's released. - Generator room with swaying catwalks over a radioactive pool of glowing plutonium rods.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 19:56
|
|
|
In my experience, Players ignore all story hooks, kill important npcs, and decide to do things like "eat the holy bread that is literally god." Basically, I've discovered that less is always more, and that it's best to just let your players just make the story as they go.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
TheTofuShop posted:In my experience, Players ignore all story hooks, kill important npcs, and decide to do things like "eat the holy bread that is literally god." I started playing a space opera type game with my wife, and had her make her character, tell me what her spaceship is like, etc. She tells me that the ship was actually a failed experiment in cat breeding, so now I have to work in a ship full of cats into the story 
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:26
|
|
|
Cantorsdust posted:I started playing a space opera type game with my wife, and had her make her character, tell me what her spaceship is like, etc. She tells me that the ship was actually a failed experiment in cat breeding, so now I have to work in a ship full of cats into the story Never underestimate the propensity of players to immediately go for wacky comedy at literally every opportunity.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
Building a setting where you can adapt to the party doing crazy unexpected stuff can be challenging, but it can also be lots of fun. I've had the most success with sketching out political relationships between factions and then figuring out how they'd react to what the PCs do. That way, I just need the party to decide it likes or dislikes a particular group to keep them engaged. I'd probably do better with 13th Age or Dungeon World than Pathfinder, but the general idea is still pretty useful. I'd rather the party totally shake up my idea of what the campaign's about than never have them surprise me at all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:38
|
|
|
Cantorsdust posted:I started playing a space opera type game with my wife, and had her make her character, tell me what her spaceship is like, etc. She tells me that the ship was actually a failed experiment in cat breeding, so now I have to work in a ship full of cats into the story That sounds like one of the spaceships from Tenshi Muyo. If I remember correctly, it's some space criminal's intergalactic starship that can turn into a cat-rabbit hybrid when landed. Maybe you could use something like that?
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:40
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:That sounds like one of the spaceships from Tenshi Muyo. If I remember correctly, it's some space criminal's intergalactic starship that can turn into a cat-rabbit hybrid when landed. Maybe you could use something like that? She had just seen Red Dwarf at the time, and I think the idea came from there. I'm thinking the cats are actually the computer system of the ship and their actions in the aggregate are used to plot complex maneuvers, like that scene in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books with the Restaurant Drive.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:44
|
|
|
Cantorsdust posted:She had just seen Red Dwarf at the time, and I think the idea came from there. I'm thinking the cats are actually the computer system of the ship and their actions in the aggregate are used to plot complex maneuvers, like that scene in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books with the Restaurant Drive. Ship is an intelligent AI from a very specific era. Back then, they had to use cat brains as a pattern because cat brains are the only brains with excellent spatial orientation abilities and the ability to relate to humans on any level at all. They were trying to "breed" the cat brain with a (dog? horse? something else...) brain so that the ship would be less... independent. That's is why she called it a "failed" experiment - this ship retained the entire cat brain pattern. So sometimes it won't move when you need it to, and then you find it flying in frantic circles at 3am. It requires different fuel sometimes for no obvious reason. If the game has a horror aspect, maybe it brings you presents. If the game is more comedy, then maybe the only way to get it to land near you on autopilot is to band the side of a fuel can with the hose and make kissy noises.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 22:33
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:If the game has a horror aspect, maybe it brings you presents. If the game is more comedy, then maybe the only way to get it to land near you on autopilot is to band the side of a fuel can with the hose and make kissy noises. If the game has a comedy aspect, it also brings you presents. You simply can't have a game where your cat-ship repeatedly tries to drop mutilated corpses in the transporter bay and have the players take it seriously after the second incident.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 22:49
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:If the game has a comedy aspect, it also brings you presents. It doesnt bring you corpses. It has more respect for you than that. It brings you monsters to "practice" hunting. They are level appropriate. The ship is very smart. Its a good ship! Good ship! Except sometimes when you need it its asleep in a sunbeam and cant be induced to move Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jan 27, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 23:01
|
|
|
I'm sold on the adventures of catship and it's minions. Badguy keeps escaping by distracting Catship with asteroids of nip, at which point catship just barrel rolls for hours. Catship keeps trying to nuzzle into spacedocks that are obviously too small. Catship can't resist playfully hunting frigates.  E: AlphaDog posted:It doesnt bring you corpses. It has more respect for you than that. It brings you monsters to "practice" hunting. They are level appropriate. The ship is very smart. Catship brings you a semi-disemboweled space-kobold with broken legs, and looks at you. It appears to think that should be about right for the party. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jan 28, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 06:09
|
|
|
I remember a Charles Stross short story where cat brain scans were used to program missile AI with the basic premise being that cats chase lasers so why not weaponize that instinct?
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 07:10
|
|
|
Cantorsdust posted:She had just seen Red Dwarf at the time, and I think the idea came from there. I'm thinking the cats are actually the computer system of the ship and their actions in the aggregate are used to plot complex maneuvers, like that scene in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books with the Restaurant Drive. I actually recall a short story to similar effect, the crew of a state-of-the-art scout ship accidentally made their cat a full crew member, who then saved the ship by literally pouncing and batting at an enemy ship on the viewscreen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 07:57
|
|
|
TheTofuShop posted:In my experience, Players ignore all story hooks, kill important npcs, and decide to do things like "eat the holy bread that is literally god." Oh god is this my experience as a first time GM. Not that's a bad thing.  Dareon posted:I actually recall a short story to similar effect, the crew of a state-of-the-art scout ship accidentally made their cat a full crew member, who then saved the ship by literally pouncing and batting at an enemy ship on the viewscreen. You reminded me of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXRX47L_3yE And this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6IyejLa35s ... I've been watching ghost in the Shell and Cowboy bebop again and once again thinking I'd like to run a cyberpunk adventure campaign (probably PbP), but I have no idea what system to use with the minimum amount of altering the rules. I'm thinking the campaign would be about either anti-terror police like GitS, or freelance detectives who are racing against a section-9 like group to solve crimes so they can get the credit/bounty., so I'm thinking a fair amount of skill, so starting at mid-levelish. I've looked at the GitS RPG, and it's not very good looking and is D20. Shadowrun 5th Edition doesn't look like it has any real rules for cyberbrain hacking. I was considering using D20 Modern, but I have a feeling that'd be hard to get interest. Another idea was maybe trying to hack something together from Star Wars: Edge of the Universe (Filing off the serial numbers for star-wars related stuff) or adapt 4E in some way. Any suggestions? Cheaper/free is preferable, though I'd be willing to spend some money on pdf rulebooks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2015 07:03
|
|
|
I played a game of Technoir for a little while and it was pretty fun. You'll have to play with the mood a bit, but it might be what you'd like?
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2015 07:19
|
|
|
Foolster41 posted:I've been watching ghost in the Shell and Cowboy bebop again and once again thinking I'd like to run a cyberpunk adventure campaign (probably PbP), but I have no idea what system to use with the minimum amount of altering the rules. If you're looking for free and totally ready for cyberpunk, Eclipse Phase is great. While there's a lot of focus on transhumanism that fits GitS more than Bebop, you should give it a look.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2015 07:20
|
|
|
I'm gonna check those out. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2015 23:19
|
|
|
I'm running a sort of Metal Gear/Deus Ex/Archer/Alpha Protocol mashup and I'm looking for tips on how to Effectively GM. I understand that offering compels is really important for the players to have a good balance of Fate Points. Any other pitfalls? The closest thing I've run is Dungeon World. Its going on tonight and I want to make sure starting with only the barest of frameworks, as I am, is OK. The PCs work for the creatively named Company, and I'm basically planning on having them run through that early mission from Alpha Protocol where you hunt down the arms dealer in his palace. I figure it'll take three or so scenes to get to the inner sanctum, but what happens on the way I'm pretty much playing by ear. Does that work in this game? I'm gonna give aspects to the arms dealer, and probably that room with the tank and stuff, but not everything needs to be statted out, right?
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2015 22:04
|
|
|
Nah, 90% of Fate NPCs are fine to do on the fly. Stat up the big bad, maybe a henchman, you're all good. Having said that, I got massive milage out of having a load of pre-made mook cards for things like 'street gang' and 'underpaid security/police' that I could grab whenever it was appropriate. It's worth going over the mob rules, and making sure players properly understand how stress is taken (only part of the system that isn't intuitive in my experience). And yes, always compel more! If the PCs aren't doing something awesome, make a compel. If you have to think for an idea, make a compel. On that note, make sure you have a list of PC aspects visible at all times so you can compel. (The word 'compel' has lost all meaning to me now. Compel.) Please mention what system you're running at the start of a post, it bugs the poo poo outta me when D&D players just assume you know, so I guess it applies to Fate too. But only so I can feel justified bitching at the D&Docracy
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2015 01:44
|
|
|
I have a dungeon idea that needs a bit of spice added: I have the main idea of it and sort of the "boss chamber" down, but I need a couple extra rooms just so it's a little less...one-note. The basic idea is that my very small party (I run a very tiny D&D 4e game with two players; hard to balance things, but it forces me to design encounters creatively so it's more than just "equal number of monsters, start swingin'!) will eventually end up at either a very rich senator's mansion or traveling to a wizard university depending on the choice they make in the story beat I just gave them. While there, the cult/weird organization that's been stalking the party ever since they escaped from being kidnapped will set off a sort of trans-dimensional gate that warps reality. Wherever they ended up is now stuck between their world and a hellish otherworld, overgrown with plantlife and strange biomass, that's somehow made up of a part of the original reality, but is either letting a part of a different universe in, or might be the original reality in a future timeline or something, that part is deliberately vague. I want the dungeon to focus on reality breaking; physics and geometry not working quite right (but still relatively functional), unreliable sensory perception, that sort of thing. The centerpiece of the whole thing will be a room that's about as big as a 9x9 grid (maybe slightly bigger). The players discover magic runes drawn on the ground in each square (perhaps some are obscured with furniture, bookshelves, otherworldy growths, etc), and possibly a note or journal on a seemingly long-deceased person talking about how if they could just figure out the right ritual, they could get back to their world, or at least their preferred version of it. In-game lore wise, they will be drawing the correct runes in the correct spots in order to "align the harmonies of their reality" (magic has a lot to do with frequencies/vibrations/musical notes in this game, since one player is a bard). Mechanically speaking, they are solving a big room sized sudoku, with runes taking the place of numbers. While they're investigating, they're attacked by an ooze that rises from the biomass around the room; it's a tough monster that takes many hits to really put down, so they can either try to draw runes in the ground while avoiding it (you can draw one rune with a minor action on any adjacent square if the ooze is up in your business, or two runes with a minor action if the ooze is far away/otherwise distracted), or kill the poo poo out of it and take their time. If they solve the puzzle, they go back to their reality, without having to kill the ooze. essentially it's a cat and mouse game of the bard probably drawing runes on the ground while the warden marks/distracts the ooze around the room as they solve the puzzle. What I really need is a few other rooms with puzzles or monster encounters based on the same theme. Maybe in one room with a tough combat encounter, they find another long dead body with a square of the sudoku puzzle completely solved, saving them time in the slime room, but I still need an interesting encounter before that reward. A maze room with invisible walls and some minions maybe? Some kind of teleport game (these seem hard to make intuitive sense/be fun though)? I think I'd be ok with 3-4 other rooms that have either a 3x3 part of the sudoku solution or just treasure in them as rewards, I just need to drum up the actual content. Gravybong fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Feb 1, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2015 20:41
|
|
|
Online game chat: I've tried a few online games now and they're alright. I know nothing will ever be the same as people sitting around a table but there's definitely a different tenor around online games. Leaving aside technical issues I've noticed some recurring themes. People seem to get tired easier, or lose focus faster. There's a flatness to the whole affair after the first round of giggles and excitement winds down. I suspect it's just a matter of the Internet being very distracting but I'm certainly not going to police my friends looking at websites between turns. Players feel less invested. Long moments of silence intersperse things when I rarely need to prompt these same people in real life. What I'm asking is, are these common problems and what have you done to fix them in your games?
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 06:14
|
|
|
Do your players actually like Sudoku? If not, it's a really bad idea to make them play it. Also, a 9x9 room gives you 81 squares. If filling in a square is a minor action, they have to fill each one in (minus the ones that start completed) that's 81ish combat rounds, which is a hella long fight. I would say that it's a minor action to fill in the square you're in and all the ones adjacent, and make it so that completing each of the nine 3x3 blocks that make up the puzzle has some sort of effect on the boss. I would have the upcoming rooms all be exercises to train them in thinking Sudoku - give them some nearly-complete puzzles so that they can get used to the mechanics and see that solving the puzzles is a good thing that weakens their enemies, not a bad thing that their enemies are trying to do. But only do any of this if your players like Sudoku.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 09:08
|
|
|
Whybird posted:Do your players actually like Sudoku? If not, it's a really bad idea to make them play it. they do. both players enjoy stuff like that very much. Also i figured lots of the squares would be filled in beforehand, so they wouldnt have to be filling in every single dang square - probably only about half if they dont do any other rooms, and maybe only half that if they get partial solutions elsewhere. It wouldn't be a particularly tough sudoku, either; most of the hard part would be figuring out that it IS one in the first place, but seeing the 9x9 grid would set them off pretty quick i think. the last puzzle I did was "use these 10 gems of power to make 5 lines of 4" and it took them a while but they figured out the solution (make a star) and loved it, so I try to throw in simple puzzles wherever I can. but thanks, that's a good idea! Alternatively, making the whole drat area some kind of big sudoku might work (so there's like, one encounter per row or column or something with the slime in the middle), but then it's one big box of an area instead of...interestingly designed. Also you're totally right that it would take way long even if they managed to kite the slime around so they could fill in two at a time, so being able to fill in all adjacent ones would make it quicker. the one thing they DON'T like is being in combat for a long time Gravybong fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Feb 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 12:45
|
|
|
Doing a quick GIS, on easy sudokus anywhere from 25-35 squares seem to be pre-filled. Let's be conservative and say 25, that leaves 56 squares. Assuming the ooze is going to be up in one character's business, that leaves the other free to move around and fill in 4 squares per round using two minor actions, which the other can still probably do 1. There's some variation, sometimes you'll be able to just stand in place and do nothing but fill in 6 squares, but let's say they do 5 squares per round, that's 11 rounds. A lot for any normal fight but with only two PCs and doing nothing but sudoku stuff and occasional marking, it might work out alright. Still, I'd probably have the ooze go around on a fixed path that can somehow be found out in advance. That way they can easily avoid it entirely and just spend all their time doing the puzzle. (8 squares per round, 7 rounds, with no combat stuff at all to track, that's easy. It's barely a combat.) They're still free to engage the ooze if they want, but they shouldn't feel it's unavoidable.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 15:12
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:Online game chat: I have some players who are distracted often, and others who are right there in the game even when it's not their turns. The longer the time between turns, the more distraction I get. I feel that "Popcorn" or WFRP3e-style initiative can help, since there's a little consensus implied in deciding who goes next, and it can change every round. For some longer scenes where one character has the skills to hog the spotlight (and he needs to, for narrative reasons), I let them all roll with that character's skill, as long as it's plausible that the skilled character would be able to guide them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 15:26
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:Doing a quick GIS, on easy sudokus anywhere from 25-35 squares seem to be pre-filled. Let's be conservative and say 25, that leaves 56 squares. Assuming the ooze is going to be up in one character's business, that leaves the other free to move around and fill in 4 squares per round using two minor actions, which the other can still probably do 1. There's some variation, sometimes you'll be able to just stand in place and do nothing but fill in 6 squares, but let's say they do 5 squares per round, that's 11 rounds. A lot for any normal fight but with only two PCs and doing nothing but sudoku stuff and occasional marking, it might work out alright. the fixed path thing would work great, since it is supposed to be a somewhat mindless thing/it'll be dark (the MM says it has "blindsight" so I'm guessing it's supposed to have better sensory perception than the players at that point, but I don't mind dropping that). I think other rooms that have clues about the ooze's path or straight up pre-done 3x3 sections of the puzzle might be good. I'll probably leave encounters in those rooms pretty basic, maybe one that's just a couple of skill checks to traverse and another that's a simple combat encounter with some weird environmental cover. They haven't done a "fight this ranged attacker that's harder to get to than just running up to it" style thing, so I can have one artillery guy behind a choke point (bridge over a gap is the simplest answer) and be set. The nice thing about super small party size is you can get away with using one monster pretty effectively, if you set the scene right. makes each monster seem a little more dangerous. and there's just plain less to track in general.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 15:33
|
|
|
Blindsight pretty much just means a monster ignores darkness and other forms of obscurement and invisibility. Ignore concealment, basically, although it doesn't say that directly. Still, yeah, I'd just drop the usual monster behaviour for the benefit of the puzzle encounter.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 15:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 21:01 |
|
|
If the fight is in darkness, you could make it home in on anyone with a torch?
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2015 18:50
|
|