|
Lynx Winters posted:It wouldn't be the GM Advice thread if we didn't go a page without problems that are easily solved by talking it out like grownups. The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Talk It Out Like Grownups. So, my question is about introducing new members, likely members with little gaming experience, to a group of friends that have a strong dynamic and also a history of being really good at wandering onto fun tangents that aren't related, but everyone in the group has fun. Basically, how should I go about getting the new members up to speed with the group dynamic as I am used to introducing new people who are already friends with the rest of us and get that we are easily-distracted comedians.
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 00:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 19:42 |
|
|
karmicknight posted:The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Talk It Out Like Grownups. karmicknight posted:So, my question is about introducing new members, likely members with little gaming experience, to a group of friends that have a strong dynamic and also a history of being really good at wandering onto fun tangents that aren't related, but everyone in the group has fun. Basically, how should I go about getting the new members up to speed with the group dynamic as I am used to introducing new people who are already friends with the rest of us and get that we are easily-distracted comedians. How new is your new player? If they don't know the system, one approach could be to show by demonstration for a short bit before throwing the player in. An example method might be:
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 00:53
|
|
|
sebmojo posted:you play with bad people He's actually one of the best players in the group. I have no problem with PCs policing the party in character when we're playing evil campaigns. It's much less of a problem than the
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 01:58
|
|
|
I played a terrible D&D game like 15 years ago with way too many people and half of them min-maxed to hell borderline cheating characters designed simply to break the game mechanics. Actually only a couple players were bad, it was mostly pet DM characters. The DM him self reveled in proving how smart and good he was at 3.5 by designing absolutely broken builds based entirely around his personal interpretation of the rules. It was not a fun game, but to make it fun me and a couple other players hatched plans to kill off his pet NPC's in situations where there could be no possible escape via "dm magic". Even though these characters were mostly antagonists and we had entirely legitimate reasons to want to kill them he got huffy and accused us of "meta gaming" after we managed to trap and kill most of them at once. From then out he just made his pet npc's even more powerful and made up his own classes and races so that we could never prove he was throwing the fights. Also every single major fight went the same way. Pet NPC shows up and starts kicking our asses. Repeated criticals, custom made abilities, all checks passed, all while he bragged that he was playing them 100% by the rules he's just really good at building NPCs. Then at the last moment another one of his pet NPC's would show up and save the party. Every single time. So we just bided our time, staying out of one of these rigged fights, then turn on both his enemy and ally npc's killing them all.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 02:22
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I played a terrible D&D game like 15 years ago...
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 03:07
|
|
|
Ilor posted:Ugh. Sounds like you guys needed to just walk away and start your own game with a sane person acting as GM. We wrapped it up and didn't play any nerd games for a very very long time. I still really itch for some P&P action though. I had an amazing almost 2 year long IRC game that was a blast, but the people who played have sort of drifted apart and no one has a set free night a week they could play anymore 
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 05:16
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Like the evil player who just killed someone for fun in front of the rest of the party gets all huffy that everyone else wants to kick him out or kill him or turn him over to the authorities. "uhg why you guys all ruining the game I was trying to ROLE PLAY!" That's because people sometimes don't think of the game as "a story/movie/TV episode whose plot needs to be shaped for maximum entertainment" That is, if you had a character that hated werewolves, and they're stuck in a maze, and the GM throws in a werewolf NPC that knows the way out, the player might instinctively want to kill the NPC right off the bat ... simply because his character hates werewolves. What people don't get (and I can't blame them, as this is a sublime distinction) is that if this were playing out on any other form of media, what would actually happen is that the character would go along with the werewolf, but they'd bitch and moan and be snide about it the whole time, vowing that as soon as they get out of here then oh boy it is so on you drat mutt. You're staying in character because you still hate the werewolf, but you're also not crippling the game by acknowledging that on a meta level, you're also playing to entertain everyone else at the table and not just responding to your character's supposed prescriptive personality like a robot.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 06:06
|
|
|
One of my players has some trouble wrapping his head around 4E's paladin concept (he's subgroup B, for those of you keeping track). He plays a paladin of Avandra, goddess of luck and freedom, who teaches to work towards beneficial change. I thought it'd be fun to introduce a revolution subplot and for a while he was squarely on the side of the authorities because PALADIN LAWFUL. Yes they're the same authorities they're afraid of catching them off-guard during a rest. (to be fair, we recognized the issue and decided to play it as a "crisis of faith" thing.) (to be more fair the whole revolution subplot thing is kind of falling flat on its face and I can't wait to be done with it  )
My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Sep 3, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 06:09
|
|
|
Soylent Pudding posted:He's actually one of the best players in the group. I have no problem with PCs policing the party in character when we're playing evil campaigns. It's much less of a problem than the Assuming the murdered characters player laughed like a drain when it happened, then sure: but PCs killing each other generally isn't my idea of a good time
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 07:55
|
|
|
I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is that paladins are basically terrible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 07:56
|
|
|
The rule of thumb my group have is: 1. Characters can't start in a position where they'd want to kill another PC. 2. It's ok for characters to end up in a position where they plan to kill another PC, but if they do, talk to the other player OC first, and if they're not okay with it, figure out what it would take for your character not to want to kill their PC.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 08:04
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's because people sometimes don't think of the game as "a story/movie/TV episode whose plot needs to be shaped for maximum entertainment" Huh. I've never thought of it like that. This is some good player advice!
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 08:14
|
|
|
If you're a Lawful Good Paladin that thinks you are judge, jury and executioner and must mete out punishment or death on all those who don't fit into your code, then surprise: you're actually Lawful Evil.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 14:33
|
|
|
HatfulOfHollow posted:If you're a Lawful Good Paladin that thinks you are judge, jury and executioner and must mete out punishment or death on all those who don't fit into your code, then surprise: you're actually Lawful Evil. The whole rules for Paladins dropping out of alignment and etc have always been mildly entertaining to me. The Paladin is supposed to be like pretty much the Chosen One, and its class abilities are highly likely to propel the character into the position of "The Main Character," even involuntarily, due to all the various divine healing/divination/intervention stuff they can end up doing. So when a Paladin ends up dropping Alignment or Religious Code or whatever, it's basically like Pelor up in heaven tugging on his collar and going "Whoa...hoa...hoa. Messed up on that one, sorry guys!  "Chorus of Angels: "Oh, Pelor!" *studio audience chuckles*
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 14:47
|
|
|
I find it distasteful to enforce a code of ethics/alignment for a Paladin when it's no longer within the framework of "you are a Super-Fighter, but you need to behave to keep your powers", unless the player was completely on-board with it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 15:18
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's because people sometimes don't think of the game as "a story/movie/TV episode whose plot needs to be shaped for maximum entertainment" Or even "a game I am playing with my friends." It's not just not-fun to derail the plot for the sake of your *~*character*~*, it's also rude to the other players who want to have a fun time instead of a not-fun time. I've been guilty of this before (my character refused to accept a quest because it was against her principles), and the GM had to jump through a bunch of dumb hoops to try to get me on board. It was really tedious for everyone involved. I should have figured out a way to go along with the original plot and still keep character ("I don't want to do this, but I need the money!") If you're playing a game where paladins have rigid codes, you might have them say something like this: "Woah, you guys are talking about doing some bad stuff! I can't get involved in that! Now let me go off on ... paladin business ... for the next oh, four hours or so, and when I get back I don't want to hear anymore about that bad stuff!"
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 15:40
|
|
|
I hear ya, but I feel that on the other hand it would behoove a GM to not propose a quest that goes strongly against one of your PCs' belief; their adventures should be tailored to them, not vice versa.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 15:45
|
|
|
The problem is that most players are bad actors (not in the legal sense, but in the professional "acting" sense) and have no idea how to play drama or desires. They say "my character doesn't like Person X, so I won't do what Person X tells me/deal with Person X in any way" but of course that's not how anyone works in real life. In real life there are long term consequences, there are social relationships that need to be considered, etc. etc. etc. All of us have people in our lives that we don't like and want nothing to do with but still have to subsume this desire and deal with them on a frequent basis. This sort of push-pull of desires is very rarely modeled in table-top "role-playing", player characters are generally simplistic cartoons with 1 - 2 desires that override everything (usually based on the player's own frustrations, which is why teenage boys are more likely to play characters who try to sleep with everything) and that they pursue with a sort of psychotic dedication and stubbornness that borders on parody. In fact there's an entire RPG dedicated to overcoming this problem called Hillfolk where players are actually rewarded for caving in to others or compromising their desires. There's no better example of this then the Paladin, who takes a lot of acting skills to do well and so is beyond the capabilities of most players (at least initially). The other side of that coin is that players who continually refuse to go along with plot threads are engaging in an emotional power grab and spotlighting. They are forcing the other players and the GM to supplicate themselves in order to convince them to engage in the activity that, by their very presence at the table, they have already implicitly agreed to participate in. The best way to handle this is simply to say "find a way to make this work" and if they don't then call out the behavior and remind them that they are breaking the social contract of the table, which is that they actually want to participate in this game. If they STILL don't go along then find a new player.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 16:14
|
|
|
That's why I also think there's value in explicit mechanics designed to push players towards certain behaviors: Glory points in Iron Heroes for being risk-takers, Genre points in Slasher Flick for going down into the cellar in your underwear, and so on. Of course, you can't mechanize everything, but it helps.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 16:43
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's why I also think there's value in explicit mechanics designed to push players towards certain behaviors: Glory points in Iron Heroes for being risk-takers, Genre points in Slasher Flick for going down into the cellar in your underwear, and so on. FATE does pretty well with this because its "incentive points" are genericized, and based on specific traits of your characters. So, if your sheet says you're a "defender of the people", you get points whenever that becomes an issue in the story, like the classic, "You can capture me, or you can save this cage full of orphans that I've dropped into the ocean!" kind of scenario. You could argue that either of those actions would serve that character's trait adequately, but they don't get the token unless they commit to that sacrifice. Either the villain goes free, or the orphans die. Some responsibility is on the GM to make it so either task is difficult enough to require the attention of the whole party if they want to get it done without taking losses. Killing that thief is a similar scenario. Player: "I'm chopping off that thief's head. He did the crime, he does the time." GM: *slides FATE Token out* "I think a Paragon of Justice would be more concerned about letting him face trial." The player still has the option of rejecting the deal and killing that dude, but the offer is on the table for him to accept that reward and take on a prisoner escort quest.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 17:07
|
|
|
I have a weird question. One of my party members is pretty artistic and has been creating portraits of scenes that have happened in our campaign. It's very cool and awesome as a DM to have your scenarios come to life like that. How should I go about rewarding him for these sketches without feeling like favoritism? We're playing a homebrew 5th Edition world with little magic, so giving him a magic item seems like too large of boon, but merely giving him an Inspiration die doesn't seem enough. Suggestions?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
OfChristandMen posted:I have a weird question. As the person who draws like everybody's characters in campaigns I run or participate in, I can tell you that I don't expect anything from it. I just hope you'll like my pictures 
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 20:06
|
|
|
OfChristandMen posted:Suggestions? This is an out of game behaviour, and therefore needs to be rewarded out of game. With cookies.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
Or you could find a way to work the pictures into the universe, like maybe have his character display/discover a talent for painting and actually paint the pictures in the game. Then he could sell them or give them to someone or whatever and play off that. When I was playing a d20 alternate history WW2 game back in 2011, I was asked by the GM to quickly draw up a map of the area based on his description. He was impressed enough to give my character a free point in Mapping. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Sep 3, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 21:09
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's because people sometimes don't think of the game as "a story/movie/TV episode whose plot needs to be shaped for maximum entertainment" I guess my main issue is how murder-happy some players are. A werewolf is a pretty dangerous creature that becomes an unstoppable mindless killing machine, a fairly valid thing to be worried about and even contemplate killing before the poor guy transforms (but even so, murdering someone like that is heavy poo poo). Basically so many players put zero thought into killing other people. They look for any excuse to kill. "my family was wronged by elves 2 generations ago, it's written in my character sheet! Sorry I'm going to have to murder this elf guys." In the games I've run or played in, killing another person was always a super serious thing. Killing was done as a last resort or only self-defense only. Even after say killing some brigands that outright attacked the players, there would be a lot of self-reflection, the PC's would become pretty disturbed after killing. Then there's questions of what to do with the bodies, what authorities if any to report the incident to, and even potential for a trial or investigation. Killing people is serious poo poo, and basically any playable race is "people". I don't know if it's just the sort of people I usually play with, or the tone of the game its self, but killing was never fun, combat with other human(oids) was a tragic disaster to survive, not something to celebrate or seek out. Most of our games though would have combat mostly being against things rather than people. Zombies, giant bug-things, mindless monsters, not sentient beings. And the players them selves would always try to avoid combat at all costs because the games we played didn't have any real rewards for combat, mostly just the chance to get killed or crippled or get PTSD. And yeah, a lot of players are just bad actors. They think refusing to work with someone or wanting to kill someone is funny and adding drama and interest to the game when it's just annoying. A good player knows how to play an interesting and consistent character but came up with a character that you can actually play in a loving game with other people. I had one guy decide to become a necromancer in a D&D game full of good characters and religions and society that was super anti-necromancy. He just HAD to become a necromancer because "role playing". Well great, the party is refusing to adventure with you. He wanted to continue off on his own as a whole side-quest being a necromancer. I told him any character that permanently leaves the party will become an NPC and anyone wanting to actually play the game needs to roll a character that can actually play in the party. He was then upset for a long time that we "railroaded" his character out and didn't respect his character's strict role playing. Also I think a lot of nerds who play RPG's are looking for escapism where they get to powerful murderous bullies because they have huge chips on their shoulders and their first reaction to feeling powerful is to kill people they don't like. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 3, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 22:05
|
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:The problem is that most players are bad actors (not in the legal sense, but in the professional "acting" sense) and have no idea how to play drama or desires. They say "my character doesn't like Person X, so I won't do what Person X tells me/deal with Person X in any way" but of course that's not how anyone works in real life. In real life there are long term consequences, there are social relationships that need to be considered, etc. etc. etc. All of us have people in our lives that we don't like and want nothing to do with but still have to subsume this desire and deal with them on a frequent basis. This sort of push-pull of desires is very rarely modeled in table-top "role-playing", player characters are generally simplistic cartoons with 1 - 2 desires that override everything (usually based on the player's own frustrations, which is why teenage boys are more likely to play characters who try to sleep with everything) and that they pursue with a sort of psychotic dedication and stubbornness that borders on parody. In fact there's an entire RPG dedicated to overcoming this problem called Hillfolk where players are actually rewarded for caving in to others or compromising their desires.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 22:13
|
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:I hear ya, but I feel that on the other hand it would behoove a GM to not propose a quest that goes strongly against one of your PCs' belief; their adventures should be tailored to them, not vice versa. Yeah, that's the ideal, but that's not always possible, especially in con games where every player is a stranger to the others.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 22:43
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I had one guy decide to become a necromancer in a D&D game full of good characters and religions and society that was super anti-necromancy. He just HAD to become a necromancer because "role playing". Well great, the party is refusing to adventure with you. He wanted to continue off on his own as a whole side-quest being a necromancer. I told him any character that permanently leaves the party will become an NPC and anyone wanting to actually play the game needs to roll a character that can actually play in the party. He was then upset for a long time that we "railroaded" his character out and didn't respect his character's strict role playing When you're confronted by situations like this the best thing you can do is to question motive. Why? I would have asked the player: Why would you want to play a character who will be disliked by both the party and society? Is it because you want some intra-party drama (the good kind, NOT player drama)? It is because you don't like the setting we're playing in and want to lodge a protest vote by playing its antithesis? Is it because you want to show that Necromancers can be good guys, too? When people make strange decisions or behave outrageously take a deep breath and remind yourself that they are probably weighing information differently and operating on different assumptions than you are, and take a moment to question them. This prevents and resolves many, many conflicts. Or they might just be pricks. Pththya-lyi posted:Yeah, that's the ideal, but that's not always possible, especially in con games where every player is a stranger to the others. Do not play tabletop RPGs with strangers at cons.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2015 23:03
|
|
|
OfChristandMen posted:I have a weird question. You go 'Holy poo poo Dave, that picture is amazing! Hey everybody, come here and look at Dave's amazing picture! Can I, like, buy a print of it or something?'
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 00:46
|
|
|
Lynx Winters posted:I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is that paladins are basically terrible. I had a DM/player who 'got' Paladins and basically always ran them as champions of mercy. Some of the most fun I ever had playing 3.5 was playing a Truenamer/Paladin gestalt (he allowed it because A: I was the only PC and B: Truenamer didn't add anything to it) who wandered around doing anthropology and helping people his whole game. Just this chosen one farmboy who was so jazzed to get to see the world and heal people.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 01:44
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:I had a DM/player who 'got' Paladins and basically always ran them as champions of mercy. Some of the most fun I ever had playing 3.5 was playing a Truenamer/Paladin gestalt (he allowed it because A: I was the only PC and B: Truenamer didn't add anything to it) who wandered around doing anthropology and helping people his whole game. Just this chosen one farmboy who was so jazzed to get to see the world and heal people. In fact, you could easily make an argument that a Paladin only smites evil that cannot be saved or is too dangerous to pause to chat with. They would try to help people who do bad to see the error of their ways, give to charity, teach poor thieves how to read and help them get a job out of prison, etc. The best example might be Michael Carpenter from the Dresden Files books. He's a no-poo poo holy knight of God wielding Excalibur itself, dedicating his life to stopping evil and relying on 100% blind faith in God to guide his path. He's built like a tank and is fully capable of cleaving a person in half, and has done so. But he's also a loving family man whose home has one of the strongest protective thresholds possible (and after his retirement is literally guarded by angels), and met his wife when he killed a dragon she was being sacrificed to. Even when faced with a being that's entered a pact with a fallen angel to become demonically powerful and has him on his knees, he still pauses to offer him a shot at redemption before making the killing blow. Far from your typical Knight Templar-type, he barely has a mean bone in his body and wants nothing more than everyone to be happy and loved and bathed in God's glory. He expresses being a paragon of virtue by embodying the real teachings of Christ to help others.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 01:57
|
|
|
So I'm having my big Final boss fight for my DungeonWorld PIrates campaign. My group is meeting the dastardly Syndney Shivers, pirate lich forced to never walk on Land, who has always been 1 step ahead of them, and her maties. Ontop of that there is an army. Luckily, they have the God of Death on their side and he's rallying his own forces. Unluckily, Sydney Shivers, is actually Captain Wendy Miramoto, Extra-Dimensional Traveler and Shapeshifter. (They've been finding tech stuff, and we have an extra-dimensional traveler (star-mage) in the group already with a lightsaber and stuff.) My idea for the fight is to have Death's Forces match Sydney's on the water while the group plans their assault on Sydney's thrown room, where there are 3 Lichs (The closest of Sydney's Friends re-incarnated.) They'll fight them, all the while rifts in space and time will open up all around them. Then one will lead to a modern world, and Sydney comes through a tank with dubstep playing. (If they jump through the portal, they'll find rocket launchers, and a mighty-morphing power ranger style mech.) I'm planning to have the fight end with a mech on mech fight in the ocean over the boats firing at each other, as the universe crashes down around their ears. I need help though, A.) I need good music to set the scene. B.) I need some good source photos for both mechs. I'm thinking they'll be using something out of Zords, and Sydney will use Big-O
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 02:26
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:In fact, you could easily make an argument that a Paladin only smites evil that cannot be saved or is too dangerous to pause to chat with. They would try to help people who do bad to see the error of their ways, give to charity, teach poor thieves how to read and help them get a job out of prison, etc. I had a bunch of disciples I'd gotten out of banditry following my PC's weirdo train of a sentient undead scholar, a gnomish ex-bookie, and a fallen Word Archon who was trying to redeem herself. Mike the Messiah was awesome. Basically, well played Paladins own so much to both play and DM for that they're worth the pitfalls. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Sep 4, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 02:45
|
|
|
You're planning way too much detail in advance. Chances are good that your players wil gently caress something up about a quarter of the way in and all of your prep will be for naught.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 03:11
|
|
|
One of my favourite characters ever was a reformed bandit turned paladin named Saul. He was decently religious, but he never thought of himself as a paladin or anything. He was all about protecting the sort of people he used to prey on and recruiting other bandits to help him with that task. He had a nice little squad of reformed thieves and murderers coming up when the DM disappeared off the face of the earth.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 03:34
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Also I think a lot of nerds who play RPG's are looking for escapism where they get to powerful murderous bullies because they have huge chips on their shoulders and their first reaction to feeling powerful is to kill people they don't like. I think that's part of knowing your audience/players. If that's really what they want to do (and you're okay with running that sort of game), then go right ahead and do it. I once ran a B/X campaign that was basically the players romping across the continent practically exterminating everything in sight. In the back of my head I knew the politics were pretty dark, but they were having fun so I just kept the train rolling.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 03:46
|
|
|
Ilor posted:You're planning way too much detail in advance. Chances are good that your players wil gently caress something up about a quarter of the way in and all of your prep will be for naught. I would happily be railroaded into what was described in the post I think you're responding to. God drat. It's so crazy it just might work. For music, just go grab the soundtrack to Pacific Rim. Same goes for the reference pics.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 04:41
|
|
|
Ilor posted:You're planning way too much detail in advance. Chances are good that your players wil gently caress something up about a quarter of the way in and all of your prep will be for naught. How so? Most of that is flavor fluff, in the fight it'll be like "Ok, Sydney is bloodied and she's openning up a million portals, what do you do?" and stuff like that. They've already called the forces of Death themselves during last week's session to fight her fleet, so I think I have my group pegged.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 04:45
|
|
|
Yeah, I guess it just feels like a stretch to go from, "let's kill this loving pirate bitch once and for all" to "poo poo yeah, we're hopping through dimensional portals to places that have technology with which we have zero familiarity in order to launch rockets from loving mecha! Boy howdy!" But as you say, you probably have your players pegged. I imagine it will be epic regardless.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 05:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 19:42 |
|
|
Turtlicious posted:I need help though, A.) I need good music to set the scene. I'm not typically into dubstep, but this light-dance video has a pretty good mix that may do well for a boss battle.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2015 05:05
|
|
