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Ilor posted:Yeah the FFG Star Wars system is actually pretty rad. Yes, the custom dice/symbols are a PITA, but they released an app that rolls and tabulates it all for you if you don't want to mess with physical dice. But the thing I really like about it is that it gives you the ability to add "...and..." or "...but..." to any success or failure. As in, "you succeed in shooting the stormtrooper, and as he falls he shoots the stormtrooper next to him." Or "you successfully hack the console to open the blast doors, but there's a squad of stormtroopers on the other side of it! Oh, poo poo!" From a storytelling perspective, the concept of adding either positive or negative consequences to either success or failure is super cool. And design-wise an old hat that could have been added without using coloured special dice?
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Jan 25, 2017 23:42
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Mr.Misfit posted:And design-wise an old hat that could have been added without using coloured special dice? Not in the way that it does it. By having certain sides of the die meaning certain things, to do the same thing with the normal special dice we already have, each number would have to have some weird value attached to it. "You rolled a 2 on the good d6, a 4 on the bad d6, let's check our chart of numbers to results to see that you got.." is less fun and not worth saving the  or the cost of a beginner box to avoid.I'm not saying what they've done is completely irreplicable, but the relatively simplicity of reading symbols makes me think there's no sane way of doing what FFG is trying with normal dice.
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Jan 25, 2017 23:57
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Age of Rebellion is awesome, and I don't even like Star Wars all that much. The mechanics alone were enough to draw me in. I just used a die-rolling program (I was playing in an online game, so it made sense to do so anyway). I played a protocol droid who decided he was going to be a robit James Bond. It was fun as hell.
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Jan 26, 2017 00:53
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You could also use blank dice and pack in stickers like a 90's board game, then sell premium dice. You keep the simplicity of symbol reading and keep costs down. You could even just put regular dice in or tell people to buy their own, I know my local dollar store has packs of 5d6 for $1.
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Jan 26, 2017 00:54
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Mr.Misfit posted:And design-wise an old hat...
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Jan 26, 2017 01:23
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Doodmons posted:The only system with exploding dice that are sensible is Spellbound Kingdoms, because it's 'take the higher' instead of 'add them together.' You get all the fuzzy feelings of exploding five times and rolling a 19 on a d4 without the tremendously hosed maths. Honourable second place goes to Double Cross for the entire game revolving around rolling enormous dice pools and fishing for explosions so you can get wacko high numbers. Everyone in that game resurrects instantly until they get over 100% corruption though, so the enormous ultra-crits don't actually vaporise people until a few rounds in. This got me curious as to what the probability curve for Spellbound Kingdom's dice looked like, so I whipped it up in Anydice:  http://anydice.com/program/a90b Pretty interesting. It's more predicable at lower skill, and swingier at high skill. Of course, SK mitigates that with bonus dice and Mood and Inspiration and whatnot. Haystack fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 01:25
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Higher sided dice are inherently swingier than lower sided dice because they have more possible results, if they explode it gets a bit crazier. Technically a single exploding die if not capped can theoretically hit any number except multiples of its sides (because then it explodes), although past two rerolls the odds get really low. There's clearly exploding going on in that graph. Does Fragged Empire use a stepped die system (increase in skill, modifiers, something makes you roll a higher die instead of adding)? I don't own it so I'm not familiar with the mechanics.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:15
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There is nothing to be salty about wrt to the Edge/Age dice system. There are like a dozen ways to replicate the system without spending dime if you want to adhere to your principles but it accomplishes some cool design goals in a way you couldn't do without special dice.
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Jan 26, 2017 10:21
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Mendrian posted:There is nothing to be salty about wrt to the Edge/Age dice system. There are like a dozen ways to replicate the system without spending dime if you want to adhere to your principles but it accomplishes some cool design goals in a way you couldn't do without special dice. What if you don't like those design goals?
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Jan 26, 2017 18:00
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I've still got the Edge of the Empire starter set and haven't even gotten around to playing it. Which reminds me, I've always had a problem with Droid characters in Star Wars RPGs on a conceptual level: in the films Droids are all very stiff and have one-note personalities and I couldn't imagine actually wanting to play one. Now, having seen Rogue One, I want to play a snarky killer C-3PO the first chance I get.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:20
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Kwyndig posted:What if you don't like those design goals? Ratpick posted:I've still got the Edge of the Empire starter set and haven't even gotten around to playing it. Splicer fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 21:41
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Kwyndig posted:What if you don't like those design goals? "you don't do it, maybe try again I guess?") rather than a 2D scale where you have both success/failure and advantage/disadvantage? I mean, if simplicity is your aim, I guess that's OK. But it's not the 1980's anymore, and the FFG system inarguably gives both players and GMs more tools for telling interesting and compelling stories. I'm having a hard time understanding what your objection to the system really is.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:46
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My issue is with a system where can both critically succeed and fail on the same roll. Fate and other systems already do a succeed with cost/gain advantage rule without having to count symbols on proprietary dice. It's trying to reinvent the wheel to justify using unnecessary feelies.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:03
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Sounds like the FFG Star Wars game is not for you if you dislike critically succeeding and failing at the same time.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:27
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Ilor posted:So what you're saying is you'd rather go back to a 1D success/failure scale (or worse, a binary representation of "you do it, yay" or Ilor posted:Do you really think so? I mean, yes, plenty of other games had degree of success or failure, but there are actually very few games where success comes with a complication or failure comes with an opportunity. In fact, absent relatively recent story games like Apocalypse World (which has complications explicitly built in for certain kinds of partial success), I can't really think of another game that has this kind of mechanic explicitly built into its conflict resolution system. Care to hit me with examples? I can´t, not really, as I simply don´t have any at the ready at the moment and am too tired to look for them. What I do have is the idea that it seems unnecessary complicated when the concept of "Fail Forward" exists and can just as easily be used on a binary model without cutting the player-base in half and forcing people to buy silly-colored dice. Don´t get me wrong, there´s obviously something about the mechanic me or Kwyndig might not get/realize it´s there, but that shouldn´t discourage discussion of said mechanic  Also something else just came to me. Fail Forward obviously solves the binary dilemma only on one side, the idea that even a failure doesn´t really mean a failure, but on the other side you speak about success with failure or cost associated. I don´t need dice for that. In fact, I believe that leaving this up to the dice can and will destroy gameplay moments by triggering/forcing such sillyness simply due to incessant dice rolling (as the whole mechanic seems to be based on the fact that you roll dice a whole lot more than you should and concentrates everything about the conflict roll. I mean, really, why punish a player like this even? Isn´t that considered bad form nowadays?) Mr.Misfit fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 23:32
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Kwyndig posted:My issue is with a system where can both critically succeed and fail on the same roll. Fate and other systems already do a succeed with cost/gain advantage rule without having to count symbols on proprietary dice. First off, it's not a one for one thing. A despair is like a critical failure, but it's also different. It just means something really bad happens. Same thing with a Triumph, only replace really bad with really good. You can get either or both, completely seperate from failure or success. It's actually three-dimensional in that sense, but the Triumph/Despair dimension is always shallow. The most I've seen is 2 triumphs and a despair in a single roll, which was barely a success. Each part is independent from the others. You can fail but with advantage, succeed with a Despair, etc. That's what makes the system neat and is trying to make a better wheel because of it, by doing things the old wheel can't do. HiKaizer posted:Sounds like the FFG Star Wars game is not for you if you dislike critically succeeding and failing at the same time. Also, this. Alternatively, play the game. We may not be doing the game justice but it's definitely one of those things that works better in play than it does on paper.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:53
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Kwyndig posted:My issue is with a system where can both critically succeed and fail on the same roll. Fate and other systems already do a succeed with cost/gain advantage rule without having to count symbols on proprietary dice. Oh yes, Fate, the system with D6s with pluses and minuses instead of numbers. Definitely no special feelies there.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:54
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Oh, I think I see part of the issue, which is a misunderstanding: you can't fail and succeed at the same time. You can succeed and gain advantage; You can succeed and suffer a disadvantage. You can fail and gain advantage. You can fail and suffer disadvantage. That's it. The "triumph vs despair" thing is an extreme form of advantage/disadvantage. Basically, it's just a way to add more options for story elements into the fiction. Could you do this completely by GM fiat? Sure, but it's still GM fiat. Finally, I don't know where you get the impression that the system by itself makes you roll more. For instance, there's no reason you couldn't go all "Apocalypse World" on this and have one roll stand in for an entire conflict if you wanted to. Or go more granular for a tense, end-of-arc boss-fight. Whatever fits the tempo of the story.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:11
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HotCanadianChick posted:Oh yes, Fate, the system with D6s with pluses and minuses instead of numbers. When I played FATE with my friend online we used a d6 dice roller and just used a system someone had come up with for figuring out what counted as a plus or minus. It worked, but I stopped playing because I couldn't wrap my head around the system. I know it's ostensibly simple, but trying to translate the rolls into positive and negative was just too much effort. We also had to do a lot of house ruling to adapt the system to even vague levels of grit and complexity, because even things like vehicle damage and ammo counts weren't really part of the basic system. I feel like FATE focuses way too much on the narrative aspects to be a good tabletop system unless you're exclusively there for the story and doing cool stunts. The basic game doesn't have enough hard rules behind it to let you do things a lot of other systems like D&D and GURPS can do without house rules.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:28
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HotCanadianChick posted:Oh yes, Fate, the system with D6s with pluses and minuses instead of numbers. You realize you can run Fate with a normal d6-d6, right? No custom dice required. The numbers are slightly higher (4 versus 6) but the underlying math is the same and that's not the only system. PbtA games also feature success with cost/fail forward rules and those don't require custom dice either. Fudge dice also aren't proprietary, you can find them for a reasonable cost from a number of manufacturers. The whole Triumph/Despair thing sounds like just an overgamified 'solution' to a problem that didn't exist. I mean, what's the real difference between one Despair versus four? Is there one or is it just back to GM fiat? If there's no mechanical difference, there's no reason for the mechanic, it's just needless complication.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:59
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I know this is from a page back, but I just wanted to say that grasswolf is a kickass looking mini.
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Jan 27, 2017 01:20
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Kwyndig posted:The whole Triumph/Despair thing sounds like just an overgamified 'solution' to a problem that didn't exist. I mean, what's the real difference between one Despair versus four? Is there one or is it just back to GM fiat? If there's no mechanical difference, there's no reason for the mechanic, it's just needless complication. There is definitely a mechanical difference in combat for varying numbers of triumphs/despairs/whatever, you can spend them to inflict critical hits, declare things about the scene, etc. I think things are a bit looser outside of combat, but I haven't played Edge of the Empire in a few months.
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Jan 27, 2017 01:52
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Emerald Rogue posted:There is definitely a mechanical difference in combat for varying numbers of triumphs/despairs/whatever, you can spend them to inflict critical hits, declare things about the scene, etc. I think things are a bit looser outside of combat, but I haven't played Edge of the Empire in a few months. No, this is pretty much it. In combat you have very defined ways of spending Advantage/Disadvantage/Triumph/Despair but they can also provide narrative things as well. Outside of combat, it's a lot looser and primarily narrative, which works well. It's also very difficult to get multiple Triumphs or Despairs as they only appear on the larger dice and even then only on a few faces. You're totally welcome to not like the system, but it does justify its use of symbols and custom dice over standard ones. Trademarking it all so third parties can't make them is kind of annoying, but it's still a really good system.
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Jan 27, 2017 02:14
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CaptCommy posted:No, this is pretty much it. In combat you have very defined ways of spending Advantage/Disadvantage/Triumph/Despair but they can also provide narrative things as well. Outside of combat, it's a lot looser and primarily narrative, which works well. It's also very difficult to get multiple Triumphs or Despairs as they only appear on the larger dice and even then only on a few faces. I also like the system in the sense that it essentially does away with all the bigass tables of little modifiers to your rolls. You just add black or blue bonus dice. Makes it pretty easy to eyeball things like 'Well he's trying to catch you, but you know the terrain, but there's also that lubricant spill you pulled off for a distraction, so..' For those not familiar with the actual system, there's basically four 'tiers' of dice; Blue and black D6es, blue for success/black for failure; Green and purple D8s, green for success, black for failure, Yellow and red D12s, yellow for successes, reds for failure, And the white 'force' D12, with white and black pips for light and dark side Force points, respectively. The idea is that when you roll, you grab a number of greens and yellows based on your attribute and skill, then maybe a blue or two on circumstances - like 'you're trying to shoot at a stormtrooper prison guard, and you have an advanced scope on your gun'. The GM takes purples and reds based on the situation (in this case, the stormtrooper's skills and attributes) and blacks for any modifiers he has (like he has some cover from the console he's standing behind). Then you roll the whole lot of dice, tally up hits and misses to figure out if you succeeded or not. The bigger the die, the more successes it potentially gives you, and the bigger dice also have symbols for 'better' hits/misses. You might miss the stormtrooper but hit the console and accidentally unlock all the prison cells. You might hit the trooper but he has time to trigger an alarm. You might hit the trooper and unlock the prison cells, but oh, poo poo, it turns out Darth Vader himself is coming in for a surprise inspection and you have ten minutes to get the hell out of dodge before seven feet of perpetually pissed-off cyborg is on your tail..
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Jan 27, 2017 07:48
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My Age of Rebellion group finally got to play a scene. We were missing a couple of people again, so the big raid on the airbase hasn't happened yet, but that worked out pretty well, because their supply officer had plans. Said plans involved going into a nearby town and meeting up with some local traders and black market contacts, to offload some loot, and purchase a few new toys the party has decided they want for the raid (mainly a wide-area comm jammer). The entire session ended up being completely combat-free roleplaying between the three party members present, and myself playing the merchant, as they haggled, made offers to buy or sell, tried to get information on new contacts or sources for certain rare items, and other general shopkeeper-y talk. It seems mundane, but it actually ended up being surprisingly tense at times, with the party pulling out all the stops for social manipulation, burning some active talents, eating some strain, even flipping some Destiny Points, all to get the upper hand in a business negotiation. There was a particularly tough moment where the supply officer came dangerously close to failing a Deception roll while trying to convince a buyer that the crate of blaster rifles were totally obtained legitimately and not pulled off a series of corpses. At the end, they came out of the session a bit richer, with most of the gear they needed, and with a list of possible people to talk to if they're after certain...special items (some of which might end up coming with an asking price that's more than just money). They also made contact with some Rebel sympathizers in the spaceport's customs department, which the supply officer says she has 'future plans' for. Not very exciting, but my players had fun, with one of them saying he didn't think it was possible to enjoy selling things so much in an RPG. I'm pretty satisfied with that. Also, on the subject of droids, one of my players in this one is playing an antiquated Droideka (the roly-poly destroyer droids from the prequels), with most of its advanced hardware long since broken and replaced with jury-rigged, inferior-quality substitutes. It's a walking junk pile with a crotchety-old-man persona, a memory bank full of war stories from the Clone Wars, a voice synthesizer stuck permanently on 'uncomfortably loud', and a manipulator arm stolen from a protocol droid where one of its guns would go. They're a blast to GM for. They look like this: 
Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 07:51
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Re: Droid chat I tried to design my Protocol Droid for that Edge of the Empire game with the rigidity of droid programming in mind. I wanted to play a fun, interesting character, but I also wanted to still play a droid. So I tried to write a fun archetype that fit within the bounds of a protocol droid, just turned on its side a little bit. This was a droid who worked for a senator in Coriscant (sp?). He would do boring, protocol droid poo poo for her. He was her butler, basically: made tea for her, received visitors, translated messages for her, had conversations with her, etc. But then she got dispatched out to Hutt territory to deliver a sealed message from a fellow senator. The message was a double-cross from the senator who gave her the message, and it said to dispose of her. The Hutts obliged, and data-wiped the droid that was with her and sold it to a junk dealer. But as it turns out, the wipe didn't take completely because it was done in haste, and because the droid was left running too long and too often. He had already begun to develop a bit of independence because his master left him running too often. (I borrow the idea from The Doctor on Voyager, which I was watching at the time. They leave his program running way too long, and he begins to develop true AI). So he was able to keep him long-term memories, and fragments of what happened to his master. He lost the name that was on the note, because that wouldn't be enough of a mystery. But it also hosed up his programming a bit. He was still a protocol droid, but his burgeoning AI kind of... filled in the gaps with its fantasies. The droid loved his master in a weird way. Not a romantic love, because he's a robit. and also that's trite. It was more of a dedication, like one has for a queen. That fit certain takes on James Bond pretty well in my mind (Bond is a dude whom the phrase "for Queen and country" means more than most). His queen was his master, or the slim prospect of finding her alive (or avenging her death). So the protocol droid had one of his hands retrofitted to have a literal finger gun. He bought a fancy suit and started teaching himself skulduggery and violence. As a protocol droid, he already spoke a zillion languages and could bluff and charm his way out of anything. The character was really fun to play because playing a social character took the edge off playing a droid. I wanted to avoid being fuckin Data or whatever. I would still throw in tics and habits that made it clear that he was a robot, but he wasn't a stiff weirdo like most droid characters. He also had a finger gun and was a sharp dresser. 
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Jan 27, 2017 14:40
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Falstaff posted:I know this is from a page back, but I just wanted to say that grasswolf is a kickass looking mini. Next time I'm at his house, I'll ask permission to take a picture of his miniatures cabinet. It's insane. Railing Kill posted:The character was really fun to play because playing a social character took the edge off playing a droid. I wanted to avoid being fuckin Data or whatever. I would still throw in tics and habits that made it clear that he was a robot, but he wasn't a stiff weirdo like most droid characters. He also had a finger gun and was a sharp dresser. I have a R2 Droid PC (R2-L7, aka "Lucky") in my campaign who is on the run from a gang lord because he realized the gang lord was corrupt as hell and skimmed a whole bunch of money and rigged the house in the player's favor before jetting. As such, he's still got the "posh" attitude that was programmed into him as an R2 Droid, mixed with a little bit of sarcasm, and does come complete with a top hat and monocle because the casino owner wanted him to look fancy. It's the player's joke about how he has an incredibly low Sneak skill and it's his attempt to "blend in" with humans. I also created an R5 droid NPC, R5-A1, who is incredibly racist. Against other droids. The big NPC is the protocol droid who came with their ship, HB-3PO ("Hib" for short), who is incredibly polite but drops little hints like knowing how to clean up the blood and remains of over 5,000 sentient species...
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Jan 27, 2017 18:15
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Kwyndig posted:You realize you can run Fate with a normal d6-d6, right? No custom dice required. The numbers are slightly higher (4 versus 6) but the underlying math is the same and that's not the only system. PbtA games also feature success with cost/fail forward rules and those don't require custom dice either. Don't even need to do that. 1-2 is Minus, 3-4 is Neutral, 5-6 is plus. It's how I've done it.
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Jan 27, 2017 18:41
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Senerio posted:Don't even need to do that. 1-2 is Minus, 3-4 is Neutral, 5-6 is plus. It's how I've done it. This is true. I should mention it's actually +/- 5 and not 6, I sometimes forget things.
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Jan 27, 2017 22:00
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Feng Shui 2 is fun, but it's very, very swing and a Martial Artist with Lightning Fist is the most broken thing ever - what it basically does it allows the user for a cost of Chi ignore Toughness against a human opponent, and by raw stats, Martial Artist is by none the best martial class in the game, great attack power, good defense, good supply of chi, and insane speed. Our GM was running a Post-Apoc Max Mad meets Wuxia setting, so most of the enemies were humans - even with rolling enemies tougher than book suggests to account for my character (a Shifu aka the healing class with some disabling abilities) making fights less lethal in general - the Martial artist came very close to one-shotting a boss, the player hadn't intended to min-max, he just wanted a movelist that fits the concept he had. And during this campaign, we learned a lesson: As a rule, we as a group tended to ignore the goons and gun for minibosses and boss characters, and clean up afterwards. In one game, the goons rolled very well, and I - as I do generally, roll poorly. So in the middle of the fight, one of the goons managed to stab my guy in the back and he dropped (I chose not to make a Death Check aka: Risk dying to stay in the fight), not trusting my luck and I had already lost a character), causing the rest of the group to kind of collectively poo poo their pants. After that, we made sure to take time to knock out the goons while dealing with the boss characters. Robindaybird fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jan 28, 2017 |
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Jan 28, 2017 03:06
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You're supposed to gun down the small fry first, that's what they're for
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Jan 28, 2017 03:53
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I'm the raid leader yelling KILL THE ADDS! KILL THE ADDS!
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Jan 28, 2017 04:43
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Robindaybird posted:Our GM was running a Post-Apoc Max Mad meets Wuxia setting So it was a Fist of the North Star game and you rolled Ken. Gotcha.
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Jan 29, 2017 01:40
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Mondian posted:So it was a Fist of the North Star game and you rolled Ken. Gotcha. I'm not the Ken - though FotNS was a clear influence.
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Jan 29, 2017 04:05
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Have just had a truly ridiculous Pathfinder session which I think I might post up here. I'm not entirely sure if it counts as a bad experience or just a really stupid one, but hey. First of all, we had a player who can only come to the game from time to time - he's often traveling for work - show up with a Paladin character. We shall call him Pally. Beside that, we had the group's resident Psycho playing a summoner and eidolon; we had the group's big RP fan playing an Unchained Barbarian with intelligence and wisdom of 5 and thus unable to participate in any interaction scene (!?) who we shall call Contradiction; we had the ratfolk wizard who we shall call Ratman; we had a gnome Mesmerist; and we had a Zen Archery Monk played by Psycho's player's 7-year-old son, who mostly proposes incomprehensible theories and shoots things, then occasionally comes through with a moment of brilliant sense that embarrasses everyone else. The campaign is Curse of the Crimson Throne. So, we have just finished investigating a wrecked boat in the city harbor that was showing plague-ship lights, as a potential source of the plague ravaging the city. As part of that, we found items bearing the sigil of the Goddess of Disease and Undeath, including a magic cloak of resistance +2 with the sigil prominently on the back. We report this back to the guard captain while trying to discuss how we can get rid of or hide the sigil in order to have a rather useful magic item. The guard captain, Cressida, expresses interest in what we've found but says that it's likely the cult are involved, but possible that the ship was just a distraction and the disease was spread from within the city. "Hang on," said the Mesmerist, "if the ship's just a distraction we don't know the cult's the main cause. Anyone could have wanted to infect the town and gotten the cult to help by sending a ship, because it's kind of their thing." The GM demurs and tells us that it's supposed to be the cult in the town. Next step: off to seek rumors about the disease and the cult. We don't hear anything about the cult but we do hear about a potential cure, that apparently works, being offered by a perfume shop called Lavender. We head over there, buy a bottle of "Lavender's Luxurious Liniment", and go get it analyzed.. and it's just river water. We head back to the perfume shop and call out to the crowd that the cure is a fraud, but several people in the crowd shout out that it actually cured their relatives. Also, everyone in the group has to make Fortitude saves. At this point we deadlock. Some people think we might have failed the Alchemy roll to analyze the potion, which starts some debate over whether characters could actually play in a sane way while doubting everything they have ever rolled for. We're wondering if it's worth just leaving the situation be, until Psycho ends it by declaring that he's bored with the inaction and stabbing the perfumier in the head with a lance. There follows a combat with two guards while Pally attempts to stabilize the dying perfumier. With the crowd about to rush us, there is a brief consideration as to whether it's worth Ratman burning the entire place down with Burning Hands, until it's abated by Mesmerist trying to bluff the crowd into thinking the entire scene is improvisational theatre (!) and then rolling a 31 on his Bluff check to do so (!!). The combat ends with the guards dead, Contradiction carrying the seriously wounded but conscious perfumier out of the shop on his back, and the crowd being dispersed by throwing the vials of liniment we found in the shop randomly around them. Unfortunately, they did not bother to, say, gag the perfumier, so she frantically screams that she's being kidnapped and attracted the attention of five Grey Maidens, the city guards newly appointed by the newly crowned Queen, who we have our strong suspicions about. We decide it's probably best to just run away, since Grey Maidens are in heavy armor they will not be able to stop us. Ratman casts Grease on the floor in front of them to slow them down. Then, on Psycho's turn, he changes his mind and decides to charge at them.. and slips on the grease in front of them. On their turns, several of them hit Psycho and knock him into the negatives. Pally runs over to heal him and also slips on the grease. Facepalms all around. After some panic, we do manage to get Psycho back on his feet and kill five Grey Maidens in the middle of the town at dusk. We consider removing their armor since full plate is valuable, but on removing one of their helms, it turns out that the woman underneath has had her face multilated. We decide this is something we need evidence of, and on frantically looking around to try and find a place to go, we end up dragging both the perfumier and one of the dead Maidens into the sewer system (which apparently the city has). At this point, things take a decidedly dark turn as Psycho decides to waterboard the perfumier - using the contents of the sewer, at that - in an attempt to get information about the liniment. Of course we don't play this out in detail, but everyone else is cringing. She eventually admits that it is mostly river water with "some perfume added", but doesn't say anything to explain why it's a cure. We decide to turn her into the guard as well. Before we do, Psycho loots her body and find she's carrying a couple of wands, including a Wand of Cure Disease, which we realize is why the "liniment" seemed to work sometimes. So naturally the session ends with the entire party, smelling of crap from the sewer, walking up to Cressida the guard captain and presenting her a terrified perfumier who can report that the party tortured and looted her, and a dead Grey Maiden as appointed by the Queen. Of course, she is scared out of her wits and convinced we've all gone insane. On top of that, the three party members who failed their Fort saves earlier start having symptoms of the plague. The perfumier says we should use her wand, which has 3 charges left, but she wants one for herself - she's been using them regularly since she's constantly in contact with the infected. Pally looks back and forward, the player goes deer-in-the-headlights, and then he uses the 3 charges on the 3 PCs and leaves the perfumier to her fate. At this point, the GM informs the player - who only built the Paladin that session - that he has fallen due to permitting torture and failing to cure the perfumier; also, the guard captain is now horrified with us and likely won't serve as our base of operations any more. He also, later, informs us that there was supposed to be a dungeon adventure tying into curing the plague that was the main part of that section of the adventure, but instead the PCs had gotten caught up in a 1-paragraph "incident" and ruined the plot in the process. Cringes and headbangs all around.
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Jan 29, 2017 15:20
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hyphz posted:He also, later, informs us that there was supposed to be a dungeon adventure tying into curing the plague that was the main part of that section of the adventure, but instead the PCs had gotten caught up in a 1-paragraph "incident" and ruined the plot in the process. Cringes and headbangs all around. The Pathfinder Adventure Paths are, in my experience, not actually all that good. Your story lines up with that. They're quite entertaining to read, mind you. Some interesting NPCs, decent descriptions, all kinds of stuff that's nice for the DM. But when it comes to actual play they tend to have gaps, don't know how to communicate the backstory details to the players, and don't provide good enough guidance to the DM. The "1-paragraph" incident is typical for that sort of adventure: a cool piece of flavor that ultimately leaves you hanging when you mention it at the table, because there's no way for the players to know that it's not the next big clue they should follow. (Disclaimer: I only tried a few early ones before giving up on them, maybe they got really good later on, I wouldn't know.)
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Jan 29, 2017 15:43
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hyphz posted:Have just had a truly ridiculous Pathfinder session which I think I might post up here. I'm not entirely sure if it counts as a bad experience or just a really stupid one, but hey. murderhobos.txt Paladins either seem to get hosed over by other players being psychotic, or are the party's biggest psychopaths. There is no middle ground, in my experience.
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Jan 29, 2017 15:52
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hyphz posted:Next step: off to seek rumors about the disease and the cult. We don't hear anything about the cult but we do hear about a potential cure, that apparently works, being offered by a perfume shop called Lavender. We head over there, buy a bottle of "Lavender's Luxurious Liniment", and go get it analyzed.. and it's just river water. We head back to the perfume shop and call out to the crowd that the cure is a fraud, but several people in the crowd shout out that it actually cured their relatives. Also, everyone in the group has to make Fortitude saves. Hmm. Out of curiosity, how much did this snake oil cost? If you don't recall, ballpark figure? 10 gp? 100? 1000? A million?
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Jan 29, 2017 16:29
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Sage Genesis posted:Hmm. Out of curiosity, how much did this snake oil cost? If you don't recall, ballpark figure? 10 gp? 100? 1000? A million? 2gp because the main buyers were random people in the town. I guess the real problem was that our attempts to not murderhobo the situation were going around in circles: "Well, should we attack her?" "No, there's guards and the crowd, and they'll think we're killing someone who could cure them." "But she's evil." "We don't know that, because of the Alchemy roll maybe failing, it might really be a cure." "If we just apologize and leave we'll look like cretins in front of the crowd. Then they won't trust us if it turns out we're right." "Maybe we could question her further?" "We already tried that, she'll just dodge questions or appeal to the crowd." "Maybe we could break in later?" "There'll still be guards. If they think there's a cure here they'll be guarding it all the time." "Yea, and that means we have to leave-as-cretins thing right now." "Can we see what materials she's getting in, look outside?" "But we're inside right now." "Anyway, just what's in it doesn't tell us anything. Maybe drinking river water actually does cure some people." "But if we just do nothing the story won't move on." AAAAAAAGH I STAB HER I almost sympathize with Psycho at that point.
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Jan 29, 2017 17:39
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| # ? May 21, 2024 14:01 |
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Completely coincidentally, I managed to play a game yesterday with the Star Wars rules everyone is discussing. I found the additional new wants interesting but lower level characters really feel like dipshits. That fit our game though. We were playing between episodes three and four, so all of our characters were jedi who had learned only from Holocrons. My character was a Rodian named Kol, who was undertaking Jedism as part of a midlife crisis. His biggest contribution to the party was setting a mining explosion that separated the enemy forces, almost getting shot in the head ("I know how a hostage negotiation works, OK?"), and cutting up his enemies weapons. After a particularly great roll, he managed convinced most of the enemy goons that if they told anyone there was a Jedi on their route, their bosses would think they were lying and ask them where the goods were. Better to get off planet and start another job. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Sep 1, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2017 19:22
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