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Oh, I just wanted them to have fun.  My original idea was just making some low-level baddy the dimension shifter, and have everyone fight on dragons while demons play slayer in the background.
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Sep 4, 2015 05:06
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Oh, well, gently caress yeah demons playing slayer! Carry on.
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Sep 4, 2015 05:13
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Turtlicious posted:Oh, I just wanted them to have fun. Anything by Yngve Malmsteen should be just what the doctor ordered.
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Sep 4, 2015 05:27
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Coming back to a discussion from two pages ago regarding players who discuss options extensively, I feel a viewpoint that's been missing from this conversation is that it can be really loving fun. Obviously that only applies if the whole group is like that, and it isn't a matter of one guy grogging out while everyone sits there bored, but I don't think you should automatically assume people discussing things and analysing options is bad. Especially if they do it in-character.
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Sep 4, 2015 20:54
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I've become more open to putting time limits on planning when necessary because of playing with people who really slow poo poo down with it. If you've got the PCs actually doing a planning segment before a mission, go hog wild. They'll likely spend way less real time working on stuff than the characters would if this was a real plan. But when they're in the middle of combat or under some other stressful situation with a time limit, I don't think they should be given the option to spend half an hour planning out their next move. I'm especially friendly to the idea of putting a hard time limit on decision making for turns to keep combat fast paced and allow for some more realistic quick thinking.
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Sep 4, 2015 21:01
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:Coming back to a discussion from two pages ago regarding players who discuss options extensively, I feel a viewpoint that's been missing from this conversation is that it can be really loving fun. Obviously that only applies if the whole group is like that, and it isn't a matter of one guy grogging out while everyone sits there bored, but I don't think you should automatically assume people discussing things and analysing options is bad. Especially if they do it in-character. This was the last game I ran and they loved it. If the talk went on too long one of the characters would get bored and act which almost functioned like a timer. They had way more fun planning and discussing options than fighting. Usually all the planning was to avoid combat or danger. Holodeck safeties were off in this game so a simple misstep could wipe the party. And in an open world setting it was entirely up to them to judge risks. So many players just like to bumble forward assuming the gm will keep everything balanced.
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Sep 4, 2015 21:05
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:Coming back to a discussion from two pages ago regarding players who discuss options extensively, I feel a viewpoint that's been missing from this conversation is that it can be really loving fun. Obviously that only applies if the whole group is like that, and it isn't a matter of one guy grogging out while everyone sits there bored, but I don't think you should automatically assume people discussing things and analysing options is bad. Especially if they do it in-character.  ).
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Sep 4, 2015 21:51
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Hey. Hey everybody. Please listen up. I am currently running Ryuutama: six sessions in, all of them more or less awesome. Ryuutama, in a couple of words for those not in the know, has been described as "Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail": it is a lighthearted Japanese tabletop RPG about travelling, visiting new places and generally having a good time. It released in English this summer after a successful Kickstarter; I like it a lot, and so does my group. Now the party includes:
After some shenanigans, the team ended up in a town where – as a minor side remark – a tournament of musicians was going to take place in about a week of in-game time. Long story short, by the end of our last session the party has used charm, influence and bribes to officially devote the tournament to Queen Mab as a method of appeasing-slash-rebutting her. The Minstrel also promised her (the Queen) to deliver an awesome song as tribute. As seen above, the party only has one professional musician, and I am not a big fan of the “That’s your day in the limelight; the rest will sit around doing nothing, waiting for opportunities to provide assistance” approach, especially considering that there’s not much the others can actually do. Then it struck me. They do not yet know anything about the arrangement of this tournament. Suppose it admits bands? What if I make it a contest for fantasy rock/pop/whatever groups? If the idea's bad, I need somebody to shoot it down before I put too much thought into it. If it's as great a concept as I see it, I need help in ironing out the wrinkles so that it can be kickass as intended. (There's still plenty of time, as we are skipping our next weekend session due to RL) I am planning to re-fluff the existing combat engine. Ryuutama’s combat pretty much emulates turn-based JRPGs (Ally Group facing Enemy Group, front/back rows and so on). Nearly all rolls use two dice selected out of the four Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Spirit). Sword attacks, for example, roll STR+DEX, axes roll STR+STR, travel fatigue checks roll STR+SPI, negotiations are INT+SPI, etc. So let's say percussion uses STR+SPI, strings are DEX+SPI, winds are STR+INT and keyboards are DEX+INT (cause you know what, screw it, my campaign isn't going to let the nonsense of taking itself seriously stand in the way of fun. You want a synth, you get your fantasy synth). Should I run with the idea of band vs band turn-based fantasy rock-off? (will share some more of my thoughts if the concept is considered solid)
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Sep 9, 2015 12:57
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Foglet posted:band vs band turn-based fantasy rock-off I don't know absolutely anything about this system, but holy poo poo that sounds amazing. If you think it's the kind of thing your players would enjoy, and the system can support it reasonably well, go for it. That, honestly, sounds like the most rad thing ever, and I would love to partake in Battle of the Bands in a tabletop game.
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Sep 10, 2015 06:14
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Man I am pretty sure you are asking the wrong crowd if you want someone to poo-poo a battle of the bands rock contest and say "No this is obviously a terrible idea"
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Sep 10, 2015 11:35
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Dude, the previous page has people trying to convince someone to shoehorn in a battle of the bands system into a game that DOESN'T have good support for such a thing.
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Sep 10, 2015 11:52
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Be sure you don't forget to let the players try to influence the outcome before the battle starts, though. Their rivals will totally bribe the judges and booby-trap their instruments; they should be trying to do the same.
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Sep 10, 2015 12:36
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Whybird posted:Be sure you don't forget to let the players try to influence the outcome before the battle starts, though. Their rivals will totally bribe the judges and booby-trap their instruments; they should be trying to do the same. Oh, you bet  unseenlibrarian posted:Man I am pretty sure you are asking the wrong crowd if you want someone to poo-poo a battle of the bands rock contest and say "No this is obviously a terrible idea" Frankly speaking, after sleeping on it I decided to rephrase the question as "gimme your best ideas for awesome and eclectic fantasy pop/rock/hip-hop/whatever bands". I already have a jolly skeletal lich rocking a saxophone ("Um... How exactly are you able to play it without lungs?" "Wut? Sonny, next thing you gonna ask is how the hell I talk without 'em?" *walks away with an amused chuckle*) Also, the one thing the group knows about another band is that they're gonna arrive via an airship, which is a big deal in this campaign since airships stopped appearing in the skies quite a while ago. (still going to add some more details and pressing issues as soon as I come home this afternoon) Foglet fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Sep 10, 2015 |
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Sep 10, 2015 12:40
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After being a player for a couple of 3.5 campaigns, I decided I wanted to write and create my own. Our DM for the past few games has been pretty good at making encounters that fit the level of the party. I feel adequate enough with the rules and character creation, although I still need some work with picking appropriate monsters and making up their character sheets correctly. Are there any online tools or suggested tools in the source books to help balance encounters out? I'm familiar (to a point) with challenge rating, but any possible tips or websites on being a DM would be pretty helpful.
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Sep 10, 2015 14:24
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Foglet, you need at least one band of virtuoso wizards jamming out classic rock while conjuring an illusionary dragon light show. Their name, Rush of Magic.
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Sep 10, 2015 15:45
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Iunnrais posted:Dude, the previous page has people trying to convince someone to shoehorn in a battle of the bands system into a game that DOESN'T have good support for such a thing. Bands should always be battling. 
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Sep 10, 2015 15:56
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So an old lady I work with told me she's throwing away all of her son's toys. I'm like ok, well I'll buy some of it! I go to her house and it's nothing but heroscape terrain, legos, and DnD mini-figs How do I store all this poo poo in a way that keeps it portable and seperated? The 7 hex tiles are about the size of the palm of my hand (for reference.) I'll be posting this also in the GM advice thread. I know it's like $150+ worth of Heroscape tiles but I don't want to flip it.
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Sep 11, 2015 00:50
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Tupperware?
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Sep 11, 2015 02:28
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Foglet posted:Hey. Hey everybody. Please listen up. A) A Battle of the Bands is always a good idea. B) If you're bound and determined to entertain other ideas, consider "the town's local musicians are mad about this outsider coming in and messing with their festival/tournament, and have hatched various Ridiculous Plans to screw with the Minstrel, things like 'release a bunch of clucking chickens into the town square during the most intricate portion of his solo,' and the other PCs will have to foil them." C) See A).
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Sep 11, 2015 03:00
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I am running an online game of Beyond the Wall, which has character generation by rolling on a set of tables, as shown in these F&F posts (1 2). (Some of the tables are shared between playbooks, but many are unique, depending on the playbook chosen). Are there any online tools like Roll20 that make this not a pain in the rear end? (I'm not familiar with Roll20's customization features, but while they seem to be substantial I'm not sure they're substantial enough for this.) I'm pretty sure it would be possible to write a G+ Hangouts app to do this, but I want to see what other options there might be.
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Sep 11, 2015 03:03
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There's a few libraries and tools for making interactive stories, sort of the 21st century version of text adventures. You could rework one of them to be a sort of interactive character gen (ie. have them roll and enter the number they rolled to map to the next branch of the tree), something like that might work but I don't think there will be many shortcuts around a sizable amount of data entry for you, but I'm not sure where those tables reside (pdf/print only?). You can extract tables in a pdf into data tables that can be used by a db/excel/etc, but it's very subjective on how well the PDF tables parse into something usable, so could still involve lots of manual work. Anyway, here's two of those tools: http://twinery.org/ http://inform7.com/ I used to know of more but had trouble googling them. You could probably come up with a pretty cool/generic character background generator that walks through a bunch of Q&A with the player to help them get some ideas for hooks/etc. EDIT: super quick example: Test run - Editor Bhaal fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Sep 11, 2015 |
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Sep 11, 2015 18:36
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I have some experience with Twine (and a lot more experience with Inform, actually), but I would want some way to embed them in the roll20 view, or somehow have a multiplayer Twine that syncs some state between players so everyone can see what's happening in the playbook choices.
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Sep 11, 2015 21:41
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Foglet posted:Oh, you bet A multi-headed monster, like a hydra, singing Andrews Sisters-style close harmony. A show at an arena where there's a labyrinth between the dressing room and the stage. HELLO CLEVELAND!
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Sep 11, 2015 23:16
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inklesspen posted:I am running an online game of Beyond the Wall, which has character generation by rolling on a set of tables, as shown in these F&F posts (1 2). (Some of the tables are shared between playbooks, but many are unique, depending on the playbook chosen). https://wiki.roll20.net/Card_Decks_and_Rollable_Tables Roll20 supports rollable tables. It's about as easy as adding multiple entries to a list and then assigning a weight if they're not all equally likely. I created one just now to simulate a backgammon doubling cube:  
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Sep 12, 2015 05:54
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I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I'm not sure that's going to work. There's seven tables to roll on. The first three are the same for every playbook (except if you are a member of the nobility; there are different table #1 and #3 for nobility playbooks) but the last four are different. So it would have to be like "rolling 1t[Table1Village]" -> sample result of "Your father was the local smith and taught you both hammer and bellows. +2 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Cha, Skill: Smithing" And then later, as the playbooks get into the unique tables: "rolling 1t[Table4YoungWoodsman]" -> "There are many forgotten paths in the woods and you guard them all, but not always alone. The friend to your right has stood with you time and again on those paths, and gains +1 Str. +2 Str, Skill: Alertness" Except once per character generation, if you don't like a result you rolled, you're allowed to change it, which means the players would have to have the full tables open on screen anyway, which is why I'm trying to find some way to have some rich content (even in an iframe) and show it on screen. But it seems the only way to have any rich content is with the character sheet system, which doesn't permit any Javascript, so the players would have to manually roll 1d12 or 1d8 or whatever, then click the appropriate checkbox in the character sheet. Roll20 doesn't allow interactive rich content. G+ Hangouts does, but it doesn't provide an api for the rich content to interact with the text chat (which is why the only available dicebots superimpose the results on your video stream, but my group wouldn't be using video). I'm a programmer so I can do quite a lot, but I don't want to try to reinvent the virtual tabletop in the week between now and when the campaign is supposed to start.
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Sep 12, 2015 08:46
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inklesspen posted:I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I'm not sure that's going to work. Seems like you'd probably be better of creating a website that does all of that, and then sharing it with the world so is available for everyone. Then you could just use a custom character sheet on roll 20.
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Sep 12, 2015 13:53
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That's fine, I sort of expected you were looking for something more elegant.
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Sep 12, 2015 17:22
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Update on my Monsterhearts game: The Infernal PC (basically, a kid who's made a Faustian bargain with a demonic being) got himself sent to Ataraxia's asylum in yesterday's session. He's spent most of the game being a villain who does whatever he wants (he's in the asylum because he got arrested for some truly heinous crimes and his lawyer is going for an insanity defense), so I expected he'd fight hard against Ataraxia's control, but to my surprise he's embraced Ataraxia and made it his new master. In addition to the dark powers he already had from his previous master, he now has an army of fanatical foot soldiers at his beck and call. The other PCs managed to figure out that the weird badness was coming from the asylum and tipped off the police, but the Infernal just had the patients beat up the cops before converting them to Ataraxia's cause.  Meanwhile the other PCs are having their own problems as Ataraxia's control spreads into town. The Witch PC's boyfriend and mother have been brainwashed and expect her to act like a respectable 19th-century lady - and to marry the boyfriend after a brief courtship period. The Vampire PC is losing her grip on the hedonistic coterie she inherited from her late guardian (whom she murdered, though the rest of the coterie doesn't know that yet): the vampires are having enough trouble finding mortals to feed on now that most townspeople are staying home at night, now their leader is saying they can't kill people? How unreasonable! I've dropped hints that at least one or two of the coterie members is musically talented in order to set up the Power of Rock solution you all suggested, but the players didn't pick up on those hints and are starting to hatch a plan to drug a bunch of people instead. I'm happy to go with this, but there's another issue that's come up: Amazingly, the Vampire's player doesn't think his PC will have any more problems now that she's had the lead rebel in the coterie killed, and doesn't see why she should fight against Ataraxia when things seem to be going well for her. The player asked to take a break from the Vampire for a while and play a new PC - a young drug cook (think Jesse Pinkman) who's struggling to keep his zombified girlfriend from falling apart. I've told him that his character could work if he can get the other players to switch PCs, but I'm not so sure it's the way to go. I don't like the idea of the player abandoning the Vampire character when there's still plenty of room to explore her - the way I see it, the coterie still hates and resents the PC AND there's nothing to stop Ataraxia's agents from kidnapping and brainwashing coterie vampires. But I don't know how to convince him of that without tipping my hand. If I do go back on the decision to allow him to switch PCs, I don't think he'll be all that upset - he's always cared a lot about telling a good story. He does love that new PC concept, though, and I have to admit it is a cool idea. So, two questions: 1) Should I let the players make a big change and roll with it, or should I convince them to trust me and see their original characters through? 2) What are some interesting complications or twists that might come with trying to drug a bunch of people?
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Sep 14, 2015 20:43
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Pththya-lyi posted:2) What are some interesting complications or twists that might come with trying to drug a bunch of people? NWS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOoJoTAXDPk
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Sep 14, 2015 20:57
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Pththya-lyi posted:2) What are some interesting complications or twists that might come with trying to drug a bunch of people? From least, to most amusing in my mind: 1. Problems with dosage; some people overdose (usually fatal, but DM fiat, especially if they're not using real world drugs,) with interesting effects, other people underdose, and still function largely normally but with a side effect or two. 2. Drug Interactions; there's always going to be some people taking medicines for any number of legitimate reasons, as well as people just getting high illegitimately. Again, such interactions are usually fatal, but you could have them cause all manner of amusing fuckery, especially if the drugs in question aren't mundane. 3. Ataraxia is initially stymied, but is impressed with the effectiveness of chemical coercion, and experiments with adding it to it's own repertoire, ultimately exacerbating the situation. 4. They get the wrong drug(s), and wind up doing the equivalent of prescribing random portions of the town a ludicrously high dosage of euphoriants, antidepressants, amphetamines, or hallucinogens. Hilarity ensues. Edit: 5. The local authorities catch wind of an enormous shipment of drugs being smuggled into the town, and assume the worst. The entire town is locked down, curfews are implemented, lockers and other such private spaces are randomly searched, and worst of all,the PCs are subjected to mandatory anti-drug assemblies featuring McClucksky, the anti-drug chicken, and his barnyard palls that last a bare minimum of 3 hours each day for at least a week. Make them as agonizingly lame as possible. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 21:18
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Keeshhound posted:5. The local authorities catch wind of an enormous shipment of drugs being smuggled into the town, and assume the worst. The entire town is locked down, curfews are implemented, lockers and other such private spaces are randomly searched, and worst of all,the PCs are subjected to mandatory anti-drug assemblies featuring McClucksky, the anti-drug chicken, and his barnyard palls that last a bare minimum of 3 hours each day for at least a week. Make them as agonizingly lame as possible. This. This is the correct response.
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Sep 15, 2015 03:11
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Keeshhound posted:
I'm also voting this.
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Sep 15, 2015 03:28
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Keeshhound posted:5. The local authorities catch wind of an enormous shipment of drugs being smuggled into the town, and assume the worst. The entire town is locked down, curfews are implemented, lockers and other such private spaces are randomly searched, and worst of all,the PCs are subjected to mandatory anti-drug assemblies featuring McClucksky, the anti-drug chicken, and his barnyard palls that last a bare minimum of 3 hours each day for at least a week. Make them as agonizingly lame as possible.  You have to do this.
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Sep 15, 2015 03:48
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Anyone know of any decent local-area map generators? Like, finding stuff that shows individual rocks and stuff is easy, and I've found a pretty good world generator that shows whole continents, but finding something to generate a map on a scale of about a small country is surprisingly tricky. e: large, non-island images preferred, otherwise this would be pretty good. Inexplicable Humblebrag fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Sep 20, 2015 |
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Sep 20, 2015 18:02
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DOWN JACKET FETISH posted:Anyone know of any decent local-area map generators? Like, finding stuff that shows individual rocks and stuff is easy, and I've found a pretty good world generator that shows whole continents, but finding something to generate a map on a scale of about a small country is surprisingly tricky. You could use that to create an island and then just crop out or recolor the sea.
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Sep 20, 2015 19:40
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Ugh, what was I thinking setting an adventure outdoors in winter? There are basically no combat maps that fit the bill and I've already exhausted the ones that do. Anyone got some resources for a snowy mountain summit or something like a dragon skeleton half-buried in snow?
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Sep 20, 2015 21:04
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My Lovely Horse posted:Ugh, what was I thinking setting an adventure outdoors in winter? There are basically no combat maps that fit the bill and I've already exhausted the ones that do. Find one of a dragon skeleton in sand and color it white?
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Sep 20, 2015 23:02
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DOWN JACKET FETISH posted:Anyone know of any decent local-area map generators? Like, finding stuff that shows individual rocks and stuff is easy, and I've found a pretty good world generator that shows whole continents, but finding something to generate a map on a scale of about a small country is surprisingly tricky. Personally, I looked everywhere for this kind of thing. When I finally gave up on Generators, I found a photoshop tutorial that is REALLY good. If you have photoshop (there does exist a GIMP equivalent tutorial, but the results aren't quite as good in my opinion) following this tutorial takes... maybe 3 hours tops. Ascension's Atlas Style Tutorial. The "action script" didn't work for me, but just following the tutorial let me make the following map for my group: 
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Sep 21, 2015 04:47
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My Lovely Horse posted:Ugh, what was I thinking setting an adventure outdoors in winter? There are basically no combat maps that fit the bill and I've already exhausted the ones that do. There are a few Heroclix maps that are snowy, and there's the reign of winter adventure path from Paizo that has a bunch of snowy environments.
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Sep 22, 2015 02:21
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So DND4e, first game I have tomorrow, and I normally wing things the night of. With 4e you have to do a bit of prep, so I'm going in with a basic gameplan. I'd like you guys to tell me if I thought of everything. 1.) I have 5 combat encounters planned, they're all different, and I'm going to use them in whatever order the party encounters them. (So if they go to a fort instead of a village, the village dudes succeed, and they fight those guys second, and vice versa.) There will be a check to try and negotiate more money. 2.) I have a basic "plot" mapped out for the first night. They meet the king, they get hired to do a job no-one wants, they get interrupted by a 2nd team not deemed "worthy" enough. B-Team does job PC's don't want to do. Rivalry happens maybe. A skill check to calm a raging minotaur before he wrecks a room full of people. 3.) They go do the thing, or not. 4.) I drop them a big clue, non-roll dependent, and then they go fight some dudes. I'm using INherent Bonuses, so I don't have to worry too much about Magic Items. What else would I need to plan ahead of time?
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Sep 22, 2015 06:21
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