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I'd say that, big picture, it's a system issue. If you have to put points into Swim and your setting is generic enough that the players might think it's not necessary (and the GM genuinely didn't want to put in any nautical adventures anyway), it's a problem. Getting down to your individual table, it's up to you to set expectations and vet player character sheets so that they're not gaining anything from trading away points in Swim if they also know that it's not supposed to matter in the first place.
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Jan 18, 2016 17:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'd say that, big picture, it's a system issue. If you have to put points into Swim and your setting is generic enough that the players might think it's not necessary (and the GM genuinely didn't want to put in any nautical adventures anyway), it's a problem. That's the thing though - having a low skill should matter, but it has to matter in a way that's fun. Making the rest of the players spend time dragging your rear end out of the lake isn't a lot of fun, but ditching Swim to spend points elsewhere because there's never going to be water is just getting a high skill for free. The system would probably have to take those skills out of the generic system entirely.
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Jan 18, 2016 18:20
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My party is looking for the door to, well, essentially Moria. Old dwarven dungeon full of untold marvels. They will soon find out that a society of minotaurs has built a labyrinth around it. The labyrinth is magical, changes while you're in it, and there's no map; the idea is that it symbolizes life to some degree, and you get to your goal by making decisions that are in line with it. Each major crossing of paths will symbolize a decision. They also will have to find a magic key in the labyrinth on behalf of a devil, just to make things complicated. So, what do you think sounds more fun, viewers - make it so there's One Correct Path that can be worked out, for example by mirroring the path of the party's adventures so far, and the alternatives at each crossing lead to cul-de-sacs (that might still, themselves, hold additional danger and/or rewards); or throw around more-or-less random concepts for each crossing, and whatever they choose is the right path and will influence how I eventually build the dungeon/what the key is for?
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Jan 18, 2016 18:37
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hyphz posted:Sure. I was thinking about it some more and the real issue is the nature of the dropped skill. Some skills are obvious tradeoffs - take Intimidation instead of Stealth because you want to barge in instead of being a ninja, or take Dodge instead of Resilience because you want to be nippy and quick but fragile. Some are spotlight matters: dumping something like Hacking, Lockpicking, Diplomacy, etc is just saying you'll give another player a chance to shine when those things come up. Big picture, it's a systems issue, sure. Small picture though, it's a player issue. I minmax a lot, but I usually try to figure out a reason why, in-character, my character is bad at the things they're bad at, so that their failures can be interesting and/or funny. If a player just dumps Swimming and then gets annoyed when Swimming happens, that's a player issue just as much as it's a system issue.
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Jan 18, 2016 18:40
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hyphz posted:That's the thing though - having a low skill should matter, but it has to matter in a way that's fun. Making the rest of the players spend time dragging your rear end out of the lake isn't a lot of fun, but ditching Swim to spend points elsewhere because there's never going to be water is just getting a high skill for free. The system would probably have to take those skills out of the generic system entirely. I'm finding it difficult to engage with the topic when we're speaking in such generalities, but you're not wrong: if Swim isn't going to be important, the character shouldn't gain anything from dumping Swim. They can still dump it if they want to, but they can't reallocate those points to Hit With Sword. Or you can give everyone points in Swim so that there's nothing to dump. Another way to handle it would be to use group checks: everyone rolls swim - if at least half the party passes, everyone passes.
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Jan 18, 2016 18:43
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gradenko_2000 posted:Another way to handle it would be to use group checks: everyone rolls swim - if at least half the party passes, everyone passes.
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Jan 18, 2016 18:52
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Our dm had a weird freak out yesterday. He said something to the tune of "holy poo poo will you guys please roleplay or something" because we were apparently supposed ask about the walls which were I guess were covered in runes. The initial description of that room: stone walls with old benches.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:00
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Cat Face Joe posted:Our dm had a weird freak out yesterday. He said something to the tune of "holy poo poo will you guys please roleplay or something" because we were apparently supposed ask about the walls which were I guess were covered in runes. The initial description of that room: stone walls with old benches. You have a bad DM
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Jan 18, 2016 19:04
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thespaceinvader posted:Big picture, it's a systems issue, sure. Small picture though, it's a player issue. I minmax a lot, but I usually try to figure out a reason why, in-character, my character is bad at the things they're bad at, so that their failures can be interesting and/or funny. If a player just dumps Swimming and then gets annoyed when Swimming happens, that's a player issue just as much as it's a system issue. It's a little bit tricky, because to some extent you NEED to allow for players to choose what they want their character to be good at and then strategize around how to maximize their advantages while minimizing situations that expose their weaknesses. Half the experience of being a party full of nerdy wizards would be dealing with the fact that you're all not at all suited for certain situations, but then the other half should be about finding ways to avoid those situations. My Lovely Horse posted:Knew I was forgetting something. This is a really good way to handle both ends of the spectrum - the guy who dumps one skill to the extent that he regularly fails at breathing, and the guy who expects to breeze through everything on their hyperoptimized skill set. I love this approach, and I tend to do it as a "partial group check": - Half or more of you pass, you succeed and get the expected result - Less than half of you pass, the effort fails and the group may see an appropriate penalty - Individuals who succeeded their check might see some benefit (advantage during the surprise round you earned with your stealth check) or individuals who failed might see some penalty (1d8 HP damage for having a hard time during the climb, even though your mates managed to pull you through) I find this avoids the problem where one PC with bad skills makes a course of action impossible, and also reduces the number of times where you only need one person who's really good at a particular skill (great for handling social encounters); however, by adding individual 'side effects' it lets those who invested in an ability still feel like they are being rewarded for being good at a thing beyond just carrying their slacker companions, and adds a little sting to those who are unsuited without completely screwing them. Baronjutter posted:You have a bad DM "OK guys, we're going to sit here until one of you idiots rolls a 20 and we can move on with the adventure.  "I mean, dealing with things like secret doors is really tricky for the same reason -- you want that moment where the Player feels smart for thinking to ask so you can't make it too obvious, but it's also easy as the DM to forget that the only view the players have on the world is through the window of your descriptions. Ultimately, I don't think I've ever regretted being too descriptive to the players.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:27
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I want to do a game where my players are part of a group teleported to an alien world along with a bunch of other people by an alien race and forced to survive. What system do you recommend for both them and stating alien wildlife? I was thinking GURPS.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:34
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Baronjutter posted:You have a bad DM Yes. Hubis posted:"OK guys, we're going to sit here until one of you idiots rolls a 20 and we can move on with the adventure. Yes.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:35
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A wall covered in runes is really the sort of thing that you should tell the player upon describing the room. I have seen very few walls like these but I imagine they are hard to miss.Mycroft Holmes posted:I want to do a game where my players are part of a group teleported to an alien world along with a bunch of other people by an alien race and forced to survive. What system do you recommend for both them and stating alien wildlife? I was thinking GURPS. The advantage of GURPS is that you can stat out both monsters and characters to the detail that you want. If this is something that appeals to you, go for it.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:45
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Hubis posted:"OK guys, we're going to sit here until one of you idiots rolls a 20 and we can move on with the adventure. 
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Jan 18, 2016 19:48
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Yeah, I should probably use GURPS. Edit: Does GURPS have rules for hexapods? Mycroft Holmes fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 19:48
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I like 13th Age's solution to this problem. Describe your character's background and it describes what you're good at. If your are the Vanguard War Wizard of the Cormyr Navy, you might be good at swimming and jumping and oceanography or something. You worry about the points less, you just need to pick something reasonable for the setting and you're very unlikely to be stuck with a bad skill set unless you pick something completely off-theme.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:58
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IT BEGINS posted:I like 13th Age's solution to this problem. Describe your character's background and it describes what you're good at. If your are the Vanguard War Wizard of the Cormyr Navy, you might be good at swimming and jumping and oceanography or something. You worry about the points less, you just need to pick something reasonable for the setting and you're very unlikely to be stuck with a bad skill set unless you pick something completely off-theme. The backgrounds thing is one of my favorite things about 13th Age. It's definitely the most elegant way of handling traditional "skill checks" I've come across, and it encourages players to tell stories, too. I'm fine with skill lists populated with specific skills when a system's theme is very well-defined. For example, Blades in the Dark has twelve "actions" that work essentially like skill ranks, but because it's a very focused system--it's about being thieves and scoundrels in a Dishonored meets Lies of Locke Lamora city--you're going to be useful to your group and fit in with the theme no matter what you pick. When running a game using a more generic system, I usually try to be up-front with my players about their skill choices. If I'm running a game that takes place in a sandy desert using Savage Worlds, and someone tries to take a d10 in Swimming, I'll make sure to let them know that it probably isn't going to come up. (Interestingly, Savage Worlds dodges the whole combat-versus-other-skills min/maxing problem by having basically two combat skills total in a skill list of like 20 skills. You'd have to go pretty far out of your way to not be at least competent in Fighting or Shooting. Similarly, a combat-focused character would have to try pretty hard not to have any other useful skills.) Harrow fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 20:15
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paradoxGentleman posted:A wall covered in runes is really the sort of thing that you should tell the player upon describing the room. I have seen very few walls like these but I imagine they are hard to miss. Yeah, I told him you gotta prompt us on this poo poo and he said back that why should he have to prompt us on anything.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:23
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Cat Face Joe posted:Yeah, I told him you gotta prompt us on this poo poo and he said back that why should he have to prompt us on anything. Great GM, there. If you have a chance to rehash this discussion with him, remind him that players can't see his notes, nor is this a video game where they can see the room with their actual eyes. Literally the only way players have of perceiving anything in the game is through the GM's descriptions. Does he want players to slow the game to a crawl with, "I check the walls," "I check the ceiling," "Are there rugs? I check under all of them" in every single room they walk into? (He probably does. I don't know why I'm asking.)
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Jan 18, 2016 21:34
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Guys I have a problem with my players. I sat them down in total silence and none of them role played. I didn't tell them anything about the game or where they were, but if they wanted to know all that stuff they should have asked. Finally after I threatened to leave they half-assedly spent the next hour asking me a million stupid questions about the setting and where they are but they never asked the important questions, like if the dungeon they were in had a special wall covered in runes. They got all pissy when they found out the dragon they were fighting was actually a mummy-dragon. I mean it's covered in mummy wrap and poo poo! I didn't tell them but you'd think they would have asked "hey is this dragon actually a mummy?". They all have mummy rot now. Being a good DM I put the cure for mummy rot right in a chest in the room they fought the dragon in, but no one asked if there was a blue chest in the room. They asked if there was a chest in the room and I said yes, they then asked to "open it" but didn't specify if they wanted to open the blue chest or green chest so they never learned about the huge glowing blue chest in the centre of the room. Why are my players so bad? Why do they expect me to hold their hands and actually describe things? If you're not ready to play 20 questions over every single little room or encounter why are you playing at all?
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Jan 18, 2016 21:37
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Cat Face Joe posted:Yeah, I told him you gotta prompt us on this poo poo and he said back that why should he have to prompt us on anything. Tell him to assume, unless otherwise stated, that your characters are not colossal fuckwits and they do basic things like look at the features of the room without you having to specifically narrate it, then tell him to stop being an arsehole. I'd give good odds that he's doing this because he wants to gotcha you with his cleverness when you don't find the hidden key because you didn't specifically look under the false panel hidden behind the apron rail of the table or what the gently caress ever, it's a classic dick DM thing.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:08
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thespaceinvader posted:Tell him to assume, unless otherwise stated, that your characters are not colossal fuckwits and they do basic things like look at the features of the room without you having to specifically narrate it, then tell him to stop being an arsehole. I had a DM like that. Every session was just a bunch of this over and over. It was never him making good puzzles, he'd just withhold information, cheat, and retcon things when we did actually figure out his amazing trap or what ever. Constantly had this smug look on his face and would shake his head and dramatically "facepalm" over and over at how stupid and gullible we all were. We stopped playing, he claimed it was because we were too casual and didn't like to be challenged. "oh I guess next time I'll slow pitch easy poo poo so you can all feel like heroes and never lose"
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Jan 18, 2016 22:13
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Baronjutter posted:I had a DM like that. Every session was just a bunch of this over and over. It was never him making good puzzles, he'd just withhold information, cheat, and retcon things when we did actually figure out his amazing trap or what ever. Constantly had this smug look on his face and would shake his head and dramatically "facepalm" over and over at how stupid and gullible we all were. We stopped playing, he claimed it was because we were too casual and didn't like to be challenged. "oh I guess next time I'll slow pitch easy poo poo so you can all feel like heroes and never lose" To which my response would be 'that would be great, thanks, if I wanted to be CHALLENGED I would be playing you at a competitive loving game'.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:15
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thespaceinvader posted:Tell him to assume, unless otherwise stated, that your characters are not colossal fuckwits and they do basic things like look at the features of the room without you having to specifically narrate it, then tell him to stop being an arsehole. There was a time when I used to be that DM. It was back when I thought D&D 4e was an MMO and Pathfinder was the best gaming system out there. I wasn't trying to be a dick DM--in fact, I knew enough to know that it was funny to read rear end in a top hat DM stories but not fun to be a player in one of their games--I just thought that I was supposed to conceal things from players unless they specifically asked about them. That said, "the walls are covered in runes" would've been a bit much to leave out, even for me.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:15
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Mycroft Holmes posted:Yeah, I should probably use GURPS. Definitely. One of the iconic characters is a centauroid robot with a hexapod alternate form. There's a quadruped meta-trait on page 263 (of basic set characters). Add extra legs until it's got 6 legs and there's your hexapod. There's also a hexapod hit location table on page 553 (of basic set campaigns) if you need a bit of detail
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Jan 19, 2016 10:10
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Tesla was right posted:Definitely. One of the iconic characters is a centauroid robot with a hexapod alternate form. A centauroid robot with a hexapod alternate form that discovered Buddhism, may I add. I love GURPS' iconic characters.
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Jan 19, 2016 10:15
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My Lovely Horse posted:My party is looking for the door to, well, essentially Moria. Old dwarven dungeon full of untold marvels. They will soon find out that a society of minotaurs has built a labyrinth around it. The labyrinth is magical, changes while you're in it, and there's no map; the idea is that it symbolizes life to some degree, and you get to your goal by making decisions that are in line with it. Each major crossing of paths will symbolize a decision. It shouldn't mirror their own adventures unless their fates are somehow intertwined with the dungeon and/or minotaurs. I can only talk for myself, but the more possible endings, the cooler, particularly if they realize it down the line somewhere fridge horror style.
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Jan 19, 2016 12:54
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Baronjutter posted:I had a DM like that. Every session was just a bunch of this over and over. It was never him making good puzzles, he'd just withhold information, cheat, and retcon things when we did actually figure out his amazing trap or what ever. Constantly had this smug look on his face and would shake his head and dramatically "facepalm" over and over at how stupid and gullible we all were. We stopped playing, he claimed it was because we were too casual and didn't like to be challenged. "oh I guess next time I'll slow pitch easy poo poo so you can all feel like heroes and never lose" We recently played Labyrinth of Madness which is an entire freaking adventure that seems to revolve around this. You have to remember to look in the bottom of all the pit traps for secret runes. When you find a vital object with a clue on it, you then have to explicitly search it again to find a second clue on the same object..
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Jan 19, 2016 14:38
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Ominous Jazz posted:so, I wanna put in a logic puzzle for my players based on the Jail House Rock fight in Stone Ocean Regarding this, would it be possible to do a sort of 'Memento'-style story, where you start at the end, where they escape, and go backwards? So each puzzle they solve, they arrive at the start of the previous puzzle (in your session), and then you skip backwards to the beginning o the previous puzzle. (this will make no sense if you haven't seen the film Memento) Can toss in some time shenanigans or something when they reach the end/beginning - maybe at the beginning of your session, they're about to get crushed by spikes or some unescapable trap, and a portal opens. Then you go backwards, using that memory thing, which eventually leads them to the beginning of this adventure where they'd get kidnapped, which would normally be anticlimactic except that's when the adventurers from the future jump through a portal and save them from being kidnapped/amnesia-d. Thus starting a big battle that wouldn't have occured before or...something. Or something time shenaniganny. That's the only way I can think of to communicate a sort of repeated amnesia that also keeps the information hidden from your players. Actually I like this idea, I need to do it myself.
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Jan 19, 2016 20:21
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I have a question: my mother's suffering from breast cancer and currently spends most of the time between chemos with lying around and being bored. I've moved back with my parents to help them out and thought that it might be a neat idea to introduce her to RPGs so that she isn't just watching TV all the time. What would be a good system for a 50yo woman with no experience in RPGs whatsoever and who has stated that she isn't really interested in the combat aspect at all? She would probably play along with my 17yo brother who already has a couple of Warhammer and D&D games under his belt. I've played/DMed D&D from 3.5 to 5e and have also some experience with FATE and Everybody Is John. It would be great if the system also allowed for 1-player adventuring since I can't always count on my brother being there.
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Jan 20, 2016 15:29
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System Metternich posted:I have a question: my mother's suffering from breast cancer and currently spends most of the time between chemos with lying around and being bored. I've moved back with my parents to help them out and thought that it might be a neat idea to introduce her to RPGs so that she isn't just watching TV all the time. What would be a good system for a 50yo woman with no experience in RPGs whatsoever and who has stated that she isn't really interested in the combat aspect at all? She would probably play along with my 17yo brother who already has a couple of Warhammer and D&D games under his belt. I've played/DMed D&D from 3.5 to 5e and have also some experience with FATE and Everybody Is John. It would be great if the system also allowed for 1-player adventuring since I can't always count on my brother being there. If she's into fantasy, the first things that come to mind for me would be Dungeon World and/or Fellowship. Because neither treats combat any differently than it treats other game actions, she'll be able to play combat like the occasional "action scene" and not really have to care about tactical aspects at all--or just run scenarios that allow her to avoid combat through sneakiness, diplomacy, or derring-do. I mention Fellowship because of this post from gnome7 (who's the designer of Fellowship): it'd probably work just fine as a one-on-one game. She plays the Fellowship, you play the Overlord, and your brother can guest star when he's available.
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Jan 20, 2016 16:07
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Scarlet Heroes is built from the ground-up to allow for a single-DM-single-player set-up and it has extensive rules for off-the-cuff adventuring in a variety of modes. The "combat" is pretty light insofar as it's old-school D&D-style simple rolling against AC, but you might want to check out if that's still too heavy for her. If you're experienced with FATE, you might try that too, or maybe even something as basic as Risus unless you also want/need more concrete rules to hang onto. I do hope your mom gets better!
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Jan 20, 2016 16:11
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Harrow posted:Does he want players to slow the game to a crawl with, "I check the walls," "I check the ceiling," "Are there rugs? I check under all of them" in every single room they walk into? (He probably does. I don't know why I'm asking.) thespaceinvader posted:I'd give good odds that he's doing this because he wants to gotcha you with his cleverness when you don't find the hidden key because you didn't specifically look under the false panel hidden behind the apron rail of the table or what the gently caress ever, it's a classic dick DM thing. It's these.
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Jan 20, 2016 16:48
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Cat Face Joe posted:It's these. Sever. No seriously a wall covered with runes is something you would notice just at a glance. I've had a GM ask for perception checks for the same thing three times without adding anything new each check, but at least he indicated there was something to look at first. This boggles my mind.
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Jan 20, 2016 20:56
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Cat Face Joe posted:It's these. I can't imagine this is ok with the rest of the group. Time to rotate into a new GM.
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Jan 20, 2016 21:16
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Cat Face Joe posted:It's these. Cripes. Do you have any read on how the rest of the group feels about it? It's possible they're as frustrated as you are and they don't know any better, or maybe they're letting him GM because he's the only one willing to do it.
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Jan 20, 2016 21:21
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System Metternich posted:I have a question: my mother's suffering from breast cancer and currently spends most of the time between chemos with lying around and being bored. I've moved back with my parents to help them out and thought that it might be a neat idea to introduce her to RPGs so that she isn't just watching TV all the time. What would be a good system for a 50yo woman with no experience in RPGs whatsoever and who has stated that she isn't really interested in the combat aspect at all? She would probably play along with my 17yo brother who already has a couple of Warhammer and D&D games under his belt. I've played/DMed D&D from 3.5 to 5e and have also some experience with FATE and Everybody Is John. It would be great if the system also allowed for 1-player adventuring since I can't always count on my brother being there. Watching your mum go through cancer and chemo is an inexpressably awful experience. I hope yours makes a full recovery. My mum used to like The Extraordinary Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. We would play it where everyone was pretending to be like Flashman, since she loved those novels - so you'd tell stories about how you lied, connived, cowered, screwed people (literally and metaphorically), ran away, and somehow came out looking like a hero. She kind of enjoyed Everyone Is John once or twice, but we never really got a chance to play while her mind was still sharp. I think she would have liked Fiasco a lot too. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jan 20, 2016 |
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Jan 20, 2016 22:52
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hyphz posted:Ok. I really need advice on this point because it's been a sticking point in GMing for ages. There's been lots of extremely helpful advice already offered in response to your question, but here's something I don't think has been highlighted enough: just maybe, you're underselling the creative potential inherent in the "come up with alternate routes" option. As an example: in my current Legend of the Five Rings game, my players' samurai were tasked with taking care of a superior's feral "pet". As they have no ranks in Animal Handling, they were in for a world of hurt...until one came up with the idea to use his Lore: Underworld to score some opium in order to get the creature high and render it more docile. I thought this was an absolutely brilliant way to play to his character's strengths and mitigate the disadvantage I had presumed was baked into that scenario, and I was more than happy to give it to him (along with the XP bonus I traditionally award for Outsmarting the GM). Maybe your player's character would drown if he tried to Swim off the island where he's shipwrecked, but if he has whatever passes for Carpentry in-game then he can construct a makeshift boat from the wreckage, or if he has Hunting he can find the nest of the Giant Eagle that lives on the island and rope it so that it flies him off the island or... If your players are willing to try to get creative in the face of Pest's potentially-legendary incompetence, then the formerly-annoying situations can actually offer a net increase in the fun that you have at your table. "Remember that time the hill giant was chasing us and we saved your incompetent rear end by banding together to haul the tree over so that when it sprang back upright, it catapulted your character up the cliff instead of having you try to climb it? That was awesome!" just might be the sort of gaming-table memory that lives on long after your gaming sessions are over.
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Jan 21, 2016 03:35
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Do any of you have a breakdown to all the changes that the DM Guild site has brought? Is Adventurers League going away? Same question for transferable characters.
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Jan 21, 2016 19:20
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Trast posted:Do any of you have a breakdown to all the changes that the DM Guild site has brought? Is Adventurers League going away? Same question for transferable characters. Might have better luck in one of the D&D threads.
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Jan 21, 2016 19:26
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Thank you for all the suggestions and good wishes, I'm already looking forward to trying out a thing or two with her! 
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Jan 21, 2016 20:34
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