|
Grey Hunter posted:When the players are able (and feel the need to) to keep secret plans from you, you know your doing your GM job right. Yeah it isn't a proper evil plot without a secret scheme.
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 21:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 14:43 |
|
|
I've been playing in a Shadowrun game set in Mexico City for going on two years. We've had plenty of memorable moments, but one particular arc stands out from the rest. The Gang: Blackheart: Elf (Confed) - The Face, vainglorious and wroth A former sugarbaby turned sociopath by years of mistreatment and heavy augmentation. The instigator of roughly 50% of all SNAFUs. In a (rocky) relationship with BIOS. BIOS Hazard: Human (Japanese) - The Decker, judgemental and desperate An ex-prostitute getting her life back together after reuniting with her long-lost daughter. Probably the emotional core of the group. Looking to get out of the biz, but not before tying up some loose ends. Occam: Human (AmerInd) - The Magician, intelligent and stable A detective with a taste for exposing crimes that the Megas try to sweep under the rug. BH convinced him he was the leader of the gang, but 90% of the time nobody's actually following his plan. Will probably be a Mr. Johnson himself someday. Nil: Ork (Israeli) - The Street Samurai, ugly and mean Ex-Mossad heavy, possibly a fugitive of the International Court, definitely some kind of war criminal. The proud cause of the other 50% of all SNAFUs. Boom: Ork (African) - The Rigger, stoic and stalwart A mechanic and thrill-seeker, mostly into 'running for the rush; extremely socially awkward. She just wants to blow poo poo up, but has come to realize that usually happens no matter what the plan is. Important NPCs: Sakura: Free Spirit (Trickster) - Ms. Johnson, tricky and dangerous A shareholder of Evo and alternately the bane of our existence or our greatest ally depending on the run. The crew is pretty sure they hate her, with one holdout that admires her moxie. Helped BIOS get her daughter back for reasons unknown. She looks like an anime. Yumi: Human (Japanese) - The Baby, precocious and strange BIOS' daughter, a latent magician with a trickster spirit mentor (Possibly Coyote; scary for everyone). What started off as a throwaway NPC dredged from a backstory turned into one of the most compelling recurrent plot hooks in recent memory. She can apparently communicate with machine spirits, opening locks and disabling alarms among other things. Bundo: Human (Japanese) - The Enemy, shady and sinister A powerful magician and a Renraku executive with connections to the Yakuza. He's arrogant and merciless, and has some sort of connection to Sakura. Act One: We're flown to Tokyo by Sakura to help her unite the Yakuza with various other gangs to stand against the Vory. Some highlights here include a midair battle with kidnappers grappling over from an adjacent plane, Blackheart getting absolutely demolished in an underground fighting ring (And Nil rejoicing, having bet against her), and a shootout in an abandoned skyscraper. We're told specifically not to kill a Mr. Bundo, but he turns out to be a continual thorn in our side. After some digging we find out that he and Sakura have some sort of binding contract that prevents her from harming him either directly or indirectly. Act Two: Sakura calls to place us on retainer for the next few days, but we're free to take other jobs so we do. One involves transporting a barge full of (tranquilized) ghouls through a sewer to some sort of preserve where they can live in relative peace. After fighting past some blockages, we get a call from Sakura calling in her retainer: she wants us to redirect the barge to a second location where they can destroy the ghouls. Blackheart refuses the offer and refunds the retainer, as she's a professional and that would destroy that sterling rep. When we exit the sewers, we discover that we're in enfilade to a second team of shadowrunners with longarms. However, we've worked with these guys previously, and they refuse to engage us once they realize who we are. BH and BIOS realize that Sakura's pissed off at them enough to order a hit and immediately rush home to check on The Baby, who is right where they left her. Act Three: With the understanding that Sakura is now out to snuff us, we unanimously vote to kill her instead. But how do you kill a free spirit? Well, according to Occam, first you need the spirit formula. With the help of several magicians, nurses, and awakened drugs and rituals, the entire team is projected into the astral, and embarks on a voyage back to Japan. We meet the Man at the Crossroads, and he gives hints at everyone's ultimate end (BH tells him to suck a dick; this has consequences many months later). After joining a literal culture war, we breach the pagoda where Sakura's spirit formula is... and it's not there. Alright, that run's a bust. We try another tactic, executing a daring raid and kidnapping Bundo, who we now understand has possession of a copy of Sakura's spirit formula, while he visits from Japan. He resists interrogation astonishingly well, so Blackheart gets physical. Rather than make him cave, it makes him desperate, and he unleashes his magic to try to escape what he thinks is an execution. This results in Boom shooting him in the side of the head with a shotgun. Great, now we have a dead Renraku exec on our hands, and a continuing lack of a spirit formula. And wouldn't you know it, he had a tracker on him that we'd failed to detect earlier. We clear out, with the body, just in time to avoid the Red Samurai. They don't go away, though. They hit everywhere we've been and hunt us aggressively. We take out a few of them when they attack us with a chopper in the streets during an unrelated easy-nuyen run. As they are operating in foreign territory, we realize that there are a limited number of them, so we find the hotel they're operating out of and hit it while they're licking their wounds, wiping them out. That's three runs with zero payouts, and while we seem to be in the clear as far as Renraku goes, we've come no closer to figuring out a way to stop Sakura. In desperation, we comm her to arrange a truce, but she surprises us by instead saying thanks for taking care of a certain matter for her and disconnecting the call. The gang realizes that everything from the retainer onward was part of an elaborate plot to set us on a roundabout path to kill Bundo of our own free will. This is not the last time that Sakura tricks us into working for free.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 23:52
|
|
|
I mean, it's Shadowrun, so always assume everyone's out to get you even when they're telling you to your face that they're not. Still, though, that's fairly impressive that the GM was able to pull that off without anyone realizing the plan before the payoff. Kudos.  Also, am I the only one who IMMEDIATELY thinks that Sakura is Yumi's spirit mentor?
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 03:14
|
|
|
Aniodia posted:Also, am I the only one who IMMEDIATELY thinks that Sakura is Yumi's spirit mentor? Oh believe me, that was a huge concern but Occam swears it's not her. If you can trust a Hermetic's opinion on such things.
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2017 21:03
|
|
|
Played today with a group at my LGS, and it was terrible. Little background: I've played D&D once before (friend was gone & played his char in 4E, pretty cool but it was just dungeon-mans), I have the books for 5E as well as Curse of Strahd, and I've written up little bits of a campaign for fun. Imo the stories are the best part and I love reading /tg/ and the threads here. Back to today: I knew what I wanted to play and showed up early so I wouldn't delay the game (halfing bard). Turns out they were doing Adventurer's League, which after having played I am definitely not fond of, and strangely enough they didn't seem to like it or 5E either (DM included); not really sure why they were playing it. When I mentioned having played once while rolling up a character the DM told me he hated 4E and joked about getting some of the books just to burn them.  Okay.So I start at level 1 with a group of 4s & 5s since Adventurer's League seems to be very by-the-book, no fudging. My character appeared in a room they had cleared earlier, but being a sneaky halfling I wasn't gonna complain and was happy to get in the game as quickly as possible! Jokes are made about throwing me about/not trusting me yada-yada. Immediately we hit our first encounter with a Dwarf ghost who's fearful visage sends our cat-person monk running while my bravery keep me around. Score! Second round the cleric turns it & it flees through a wall not to be seen again. Couple notes here: 1. The effect of the ghost also left our cat-person aged 40 years and there was a lot of talk & checking of phones to determine what effects this would have. DM posted on stackoverflow or something about it while we were playing and his phone kept going off with notifications of a sound byte, "only my weapon understands me". I feel like the DM and senior players were struggling against the rules trying to find more things to complain about, but some laughs were had as the monk is a fantastic role-player! Could definitely see them being fun to play with in the future. 2. The DM told me how much he hated Vicious Mockery as I went to use it, and I struggled a little to come up with something clever. A couple tries & I sputtered out something acceptable ("rabbits build better tunnels!") so we could move on with rolling, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. About this time another person showed up (gnome necromancer [read: wizard]) because the person running a game in the other room didn't want them in and the DM went to go discuss with them. It's decided they can join our party and they prompty 'teleported in'.  Dunno, I figure it's just dungeon-mans and role-playing is optional. We continue down a hallway, checking rooms and fighting minor baddies while the newly arrived player attempts voice & illusion cantrips to solicit aid from the duergar in the other room. Here it was very clear that the player needed a gentle push to get them integrated with the group, but instead they got left behind. I spoke up a couple times, but the DM fought every action and the rest of us cleared tiny rooms. The DM mentioned the rooms were pulled from a table, so it became pretty clear they were a waste of time. Although a couple had jewels and gold, I was informed that with 'the way Adventurer's League works' I probably wouldn't end up keeping any of the loot so there was no real incentive to look around.After a couple hours we got to a point of what I thought was plot! There was a good-looking lady with tattered clothes crying in what looked to be an old reading-room. A couple of people went in to talk to her while the gnome walked in to one of the rooms we didn't check and got attacked by a living armor (here it was noted by the DM that since he didn't shout for help none of us could hear him fighting, and while he had a skeletal minion it just stood nearby holding a small chest since the player didn't want it to die fighting). The lady had very little information, saying she was trapped there by a wizard who was downstairs somewhere (full stop). She asked for someone to stay with her for protection, and our warlock said the rogue would do it then left and closed the door. DM asks the rogue to roll will save, he failed, and was charmed by her. The woman went in for a kiss, and surprise! she was a succubus. Our 5th level rogue died instantly. Here is where everything sort of opened up to me as the DM described the way he killed other people that play there with a big grin, and used personal pronouns when the animated armor fought our gnome necromancer (I rolled, I hit you for, etc). He was actually disappointed when the armor made a bad attack roll...  After some nudging OOC the gnome shouts for help while fighting and I run back to assist him along with the cat-person monk. We take down the armor no problem and heal him up! The other players now being aware of the succubus OOC cautiously approach the encounter while we were fighting the armor (group couldn't seem to stick together). The warlock goes back in (after deciding he wanted nothing to do with her) alongside our cleric to see his dead friend who was perfectly fine a second ago. The players roll for insight to see if this is fishy, but fail. Second verse same as the first, the warlock is charmed in front of the cleric then kissed and instantly killed. Cleric drops a spectral weapon spell or something and hightails it! It took 4 hours for the DM to kill two PCs in one hit and they decided not to try and resurrect once we make it back to town or anything so they handed in their character sheets. Maybe the DM has them posted on a Kill-Wall of some sort. It wasn't guy-chasing-me-with-a-knife or shouting-match terrible, but it was incredibly disappointing. Anyway, I really enjoy reading the games on here and thought I'd share my experience as a new player. Hoping I can find some people that I enjoy hanging out with so we can all have a good time and let dice take a backseat. Much rather have a beer with people around a table, but if I get the itch and gotta scratch I'll hit up one of the play threads here! myDad fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jul 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 03:49
|
|
|
Adventurer's league generally sucks, especially with the GM being a dick. See if you can find a cooler group.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 04:17
|
|
|
rumble in the bunghole posted:Adventurer's league generally sucks, especially with the GM being a dick. See if you can find a cooler group. Yeah I'm gonna see if there's an RPG club at the university. I just want to hang out, drink some beers, and pretend to be a suave midget swashbuckler or something 
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 04:36
|
|
|
I've been in a Forgotten Realms campaign for the last year and a half with mostly 3.5 rules and some PF and homebrew sprinkled in. Our current story arc includes the adventuring party settling a trade dispute between Cormyr and Iriaebor. Turns out the main issue was the trade routes were being disrupted by two different third parties, unfortunately, our contact in the Trade Minister's office didn't care about the source of the disruption, just that we took care of it. After tracking down leads we've discovered the main gist of the plot is this - a cult to a green dragon is in conflict with a Lich leading a coalition of raised undead and Werewolves, with some undead were-things tossed in for good measure. The Party
The Plothook After being sent to settle the trade dispute and uncovering the two clashing cults our interference was noticed by the Lich. Bounty hunters were sent to capture us, and they successfully took advantage of each of our individual weaknesses. The whole party was bound and held in a paddywagon of some kind when the green dragon cultists interfered and we were able to run away while the bounty hunters and cultists duked it out. Some further bumbling and following the trail of the Lich and his cult led to a siege of a Harper's stronghold where the Lich may be hiding. The siege battle took an all day session to complete, clearing the Keep inside the walls took another session. At the end of the Keep clearing, we enter the library staffed by a ghostly librarian. Many goodies are found on the shelves (a few +2 ability score books, various divine and arcane scrolls, including a SCROLL OF GATE that Rasputin greedily took). Ghost librarian gave us some much-needed exposition and let us know that a long hallway at one end of the library was the artifact room. She had seen the Lich enter the artifact room, but he hadn't come back out. According to her, the magical warding of the Keep would have prevented any type of travel out - he was still in there, likely trapped by the magical defenses. She also granted us a restful boon - all of our spell slots were refreshed and all of our daily use magical items were renewed. This is where the session before last ended. At the beginning of our last session, Rasputin gathered together the party, minus Dwayne. Rasputin: "So I don't know if you remember the terms of Dwayne's service to me, but it ends once the Lich is dead." Sookie: "Good riddance." Rasputin: "Well, yes and no. He can't plane shift, so I don't forsee any problems from him in the future. But his boss might be pissed about his absence." Jenn: "What are you saying? We should kill him?" Rasputin: "If things are going well against the Lich, sure. I've got a Dimensional Anchor spell prepped, that should keep him from teleporting around. And an align weapon spell so everyone is bashing him with good aligned weapons. Should slice through him like a hot knife through butter. But again, only IF things are going good against the Lich. He won't hang around longer than he has to, so either way at the end of this fight he's going home unless we kill him first." Here's the text of Planar Binding, just FYI: "Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came." Since we all have our spell slots refreshed we refresh our 10 minute/level buffs and off we go towards the artifact room. As we enter the antechamber a loud voice from the other side of the door speaks, cold and raspy to our ears. Lich: "Welcome, I wondered how long it would take! I know the artifact you seek is here, but I've already claimed it. However, I have no quarrel with you. We both seek to slay the green harlot! Ask me no questions, for I know you would parley with me endlessly. I simply ask one question for one member of your fellowship." "Sookie! I will allow you to take the artifact, but you must swear on your father's life to return it to me once the deed is done and the green harlot is dead. Answer: yes or no." Sookie: "No one threatens my father :anime pose: CHARGE!" DM: "Roll initiative" The Combat The artifact room is a long hallway with various items in it, a luxury armory if you will. The Lich is on the far end of the rectangular room, near a low bench and flanked by two spectral ghosts. Between us and the Lich are some dozen other types of undead: skeleton archers, plague blights, and wights. But there's a clear path all the way from the door to the low bench, and Sookie is at the top of the initiative order, right after Rasputin. He knows exactly what Sookie is going to do - HONORABLE SINGLE COMBAT - and casts Haste on the entire party and uses his Dark Knowledge ability to give the entire party +3 to attack rolls against the Lich. Hasted Sookie's fly speed is now 80 feet, so she takes to the wing and flying charges right on top of the Lich, striking him with a single attack for 45 damage. The rest of the party fires up AOE abilities and wipes out the lesser undead types. Draz wildshapes into a Shambling Mound to tank the specters while wielding a Mace of Disruption, Jenn is throwing chain lightning at the undead around Draz and buffing Draz's CON score while killing zombies, and Drunk is dancing from plague blight to plague blight. On the Lich's first action, he casts Dispel Magic against Sookie and makes the dispel check for every buff she has. Rasputin commands Dwayne to give Sookie some backup, which he does and surprises her since they have a mutual hatred for each other. Draz is taking negative levels from the specters, Drunk is disabled on the floor after eating a Greater Bestow Curse that lowered his STR to 1, Sookie is entangled by her own circulatory system, Rasputin is out of summon monster spells, and Jenn finds out that the Lich is immune to lightning. The good news is that all of the mooks are dead and the party can focus on the Lich. Easier said than done - he's been shifting into Ethereal form and moving around the room to avoid taking damage. Summon Monsters did their part to clean up the lesser undead, but they can only hit the Lich when he's not ethereal and on a roll of 18 or better. Rasputin readies an action to hit the Lich with a Dimensional Anchor spell the next time he shifts out of his ethereal form, which lands with some help from a well-timed use of an Action Point. From there he's stuck on the ethereal plane, but we're having a hard time hitting him. He's surrounded by summons and can't move, but our glass cannon can't hit him, our summons can barely hit him and are having a hard time overcoming his DR/bludgeoning when they do hit, Sookie spent 3 rounds entangled by her own blood vessels, and no one thought to prepare Remove Curse for poor Drunk. Dwayne is doing a decent job of hitting him with full attacks, but having a hard time overcoming DR since all his natural attacks are slashing/piercing. The Lich lets out a Doomtide, dazes 4 out of 5 summoned demons, and moves across the room. Rasputin saves against the Doomtide's daze, but can't see anything so he moves towards the edge of the mist. He spots the Lich in a corner, but he's out of any offensive options - except his at will Elemental from his feat: Summon Elemental. Poor Rocky has a single slam attack and it's only +11, no way to hit unless he rolls a 20. Rasputin's player announces to the table - I can't hit him except on a 20. I might be able to bull-rush him but it'll only push him further away, Rocky's range won't let me move to the other side to push him back. Whatever, 5%, LETS GO!!!! Natural 20. Damage roll: 1d8+10 = 13. The DM's eyes go wide. "What kind of damage is that." Rasputin: "Slam attack, counts as magical and bludgeoning." DM: "A low rumble begins as the Lich's body starts to shake. It culminates in a high-pitched scream, and his corporeal form shatters into a black dust. A cold pocket of air rushes out from where he was previously, bringing the temperature in the room down significantly. You've killed the Lich!" Dwayne: "Boss, contract complete." :FAAART: poofs back to the Abyss. The Aftermath With a little bit of searching, we found a secret room where the rarest artifacts were kept, along with the Lich's personal journal and some other things for the sake of exposition. The Lich was the lost Prince of Iriaebor, who had been seduced by a Green Dragon in humanoid form. Eventually, he learned her secret and decided to continue to work with her and research ways to extend his own life to match her longevity so they could work together longer. They had a falling out, and now he seeks the MacGuffin of Dragonslaying piece by piece. Some of the pieces he already held, others in the Harper's keep could only be taken by someone pure of heart, anyone else taking them for selfish reasons would be trapped in the artifact hall. Further searching turned up no phylactery, of course. Rasputin: "We got played." Rest of group: "???" DM:  Rasputin: "He knew that Sookie would be honor-bound to bring back the artifact if we took it from him. He also knew that Sookie probably wouldn't swear on her father's life. Either way, we were going to either give him the artifact or take it by force. He knew he would reform wherever his phylactery is if we killed him so it was a win-win situation for him." Draz: "Well, I'm not about to let a dragon-killing super weapon out into the world. Leave it here, destroy it, or take it somewhere safe - no one needs to have access to this." Drunk, in a whisper still on the floor immobile: "Guys, can you please relay what's going on to me? Also, I could use a drink." Sookie: "We need to find that phylactery. How long until he reforms?" Rasputin: "Two days. Maybe ten. Not long." And that's where we left off. The session started at 4 PM, combat at 4:30. Took an hour dinner break around 7, and finished combat at 11:30 PM. Seven rounds of combat in seven hours and we were all locked in and engaged the entire time. What a session!
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 04:39
|
|
|
Try to grab contact info for the couple of cool dudes, then poach them if you find a good group.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 09:38
|
|
|
JUST MAKING CHILI posted:Seven rounds of combat in seven hours and we were all locked in and engaged the entire time. What a session! You HAVE to love it when a 20 HAS to be rolled...and a 20 GETS rolled. Someone said it earlier in this thread, dice have their own internal sense of narrative drama...
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 11:58
|
|
|
It's great you guys were engaged the whole time, but wow 42 seconds of in-game combat took 7 hours 
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 13:06
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:You HAVE to love it when a 20 HAS to be rolled...and a 20 GETS rolled. Someone said it earlier in this thread, dice have their own internal sense of narrative drama... "You guys have to tell me if you roll a 1." I almost immediately rolled a 1. Nuns with Guns posted:It's great you guys were engaged the whole time, but wow 42 seconds of in-game combat took 7 hours Sounds about right. And that's not a snarky jab, either. My group would get through one combat a session with only minimal bookending.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 17:18
|
|
|
As opposed to yesterday, where we didn't have a single dice roll in six hours of play - it was all dialogue, character conversation and relationship growth, while we've had three-four hours fights against dragons and other high-challenge creatures. 7 hours for 42 seconds...it's an outlier, but I believe it lies somewhere on the bell curve.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 17:35
|
|
|
Dareon posted:Sounds about right. And that's not a snarky jab, either. My group would get through one combat a session with only minimal bookending. I feel a little better about the amount of time the
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 17:41
|
|
|
There were nine initiative rolls - 5 for the PCs, 1 for the bound Vrock, 1 for the Lich, and 2 for his minions. And the summoner had up to 6 devils on the board at one point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2017 18:31
|
|
|
The Sprawl game I'm in gets better and better every week, as we discover how horrible my main character is. Cyrus bin Khourith (alias prophet9) is an Achaemenid Persian working for 'Acumen by Zürich Orbital'. ZO is the setting's powerhouse industrial investor, and Acumen is its 'inspirational seminar/corporate raiding' subsidiary. While the rest of the party is a collection of violent, semi-psychotic or at least morally compromised shadow-runners, Cyrus solves all his problems with three real strategies: -laying down a layer of bullshit, -spending ZO money, or -throwing team members at a problem. So when a Sega-Diatsu fixer interrupted dinner with a mission that would hurt ZO, he went to the bathroom… and called his secretary. By the next morning, he was on the company's rooftop driving range. By the next day, he was forging emails to get the party's heavy hitter one on one in a conference "breakout session" with the Sega fixer, and 10 minutes after that, he had the rival strung up in a gruesome, false flag anti-Cyberware ritual. He got his team a double payday, first for sticking it to a rival company, second for overtime working the conference. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 19:15 on May 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2017 08:54
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:Achaemenid Persian For someone from 500BC, he learns fast.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2017 15:05
|
|
|
myDad posted:
How does any nerd hate VM? It's insulting someone so hard it can kill them, I'd take that ability IRL any day!
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2017 17:36
|
|
|
So, we've recently started a new campaign in the Battletech universe, and already things are looking like they're going to be delightfully crazy. The setup is that the party is a group of associates of one Edith Cameron, a minor descendant of the family currently ruling more or less the entire galaxy, in the year 2766 on the oceanic planet of Kallan (fairly early in the Battletech timeline, before the Clans and all that poo poo). If you're familiar with the Battletech timeline, you might already see why this is a recipe for trouble: 2766 is the year that marked the beginning of a large-scale coup against the Camerons, leading to a massive civil war and basically utterly loving over the entire galaxy. Short overview of the party: Anne Rheita, a minor noble from Luna and military officer, currently stationed on Kallan and a friend of Ryan's. Bernhard von Bülow, an eccentric Lyran trader doing business with the Camerons, owns a small JumpShip (a ship capable of interstellar FTL hyperjumps, a fairly rare thing in Battletech) Linh Thi Vereshchagina, a disgraced Capellan aerospace pilot, now busted down to being Edith's personal chauffeur and pilot. Ryan Thorpe, a military veteran, current bodyguard and chief of security to Edith. William Lindqvist, a surgeon and scientist working in the advanced research labs on Kallan, which are actively sponsored and supported by Edith. So, after the initial introductions, the party has their first big outing during Edith's birthday party. Even as just a minor member of her family, it still warranted a pretty huge ceremony, with guests and nobility from all over the galaxy dropping by. The players, already knowing what was canonically waiting for us, were already rather on edge. Not least because the whole thing was taking place in a submarine habitat on the ocean floor. But we really weren't prepared for what was about to happen: In the middle of the party, a great rift opened up in the air in the centre of the room. Out of it came a squall of ocean water (liberally drenching a noble making a speech) and a guy in full-body powered armour. As you might imagine, all hell broke loose. The armoured intruder immediately started running for the exit. Ryan did his job and rushed Edith away to safety, accompanied by most of the rest of the party. Linh, never much good at risk assessment, instead ran after the armoured intruder. She caught up to him in the hallway and a brief fistfight ensued. Linh, being actually quite proficient in martial arts, landed a couple good hits right away but had no hope of actually hurting the guy through his massive armour. Her luck quickly changed and the guy (who turned out to be even better at martial arts) kneed her in the groin hard enough to cause a sprain (the system has pretty detailed random wound tables  ) and then Judo-threw her to the ground, fracturing her arm. Then he ran off out into the "street" and vanished into thin air, much the same way he arrived.This was kind of a big deal for a whole number of reasons: First off, teleportation like this doesn't really exist in Battletech. The closest thing is the hyperspace travel of JumpShips, which requires a building-sized drive, ludicrous amounts of power, and will catastrophically fail if too close to a gravity well. Secondly, the armour he was wearing was a very advanced type only really seen in high-end military special forces units. Last, but certainly not least, his armour was showing this insignia:  That's the insignia of ComStar, a major player in Battletech politics. The issue there is, ComStar wouldn't exist yet for another 22 years, as the very reason for its founding would be the civil war that was about to kick off. Over the next few days, nothing else out of the ordinary occurred and things were beginning to normalise. As part of the birthday celebrations, the important guests were lead on guided tours around Kallan's laboratories, which were located in a separate undersea habitat. Edith, Ryan, William, and Bernhard were leading/attending one such tour when Bernhard received news from his ship that a whole lot of unidentified warships were arriving in the system. To make matters worse, right in the middle of that call the oribtal-surface communications were suddenly being jammed. Putting two and two together, Edith lead the half-party away from the tour and deeper into the labs. Well, except for Bernhard, who takes the better part of valour and hurried towards the docks to get back on his ship and the hell out of dodge. Ryan and William accompany Edith as she retrieved a certain briefcase from the deep labs. Neither of them really knew what the hell is going on, but Edith appeared to have a plan. On their way out, they were stopped by a guy who was earlier shown to be a test subject in one of the labs' medical research initiatives. Edith pretty much immediately told Ryan to shoot him, which he does. Ryan nailed the guy right in the jaw, except the bullet just glanced off entirely with no visible effect. Thinking quickly, William took control of one of the voice-activated robotic arms nearby and slammed it into their opponent, injuring and stunning him long enough for them to make their escape. At the same time, Linh was still over in the other habitat, preparing to drive Anne and some of her visiting family members on another tour. Just as she was about to go out, Linh was visited by one the Rimworld Republic's (the faction behind the coup) local military commanders. He pretty much straight-up tried to recruit her into the coup, since she had all the access codes to all of Edith's private vehicles. Seeing no other option right then (though just shooting him right in his traitor-face was tempting), she played along for the time being. They picked up a squad of coupist MPs as well as Anne and her family and went on a submarine to make their way over to the research habitat where Edith and the rest of the party were still located. On the way there, Linh managed to covertly bring Anne up to speed, and they agreed to continue playing along until an opportunity presented itself. Sealing off the submarine's bridge and flooding the passenger compartment with the coupists still inside was briefly considered, but unfortunately turned out to be unfeasible.  The group with the coupists quickly reached Edith and the rest of the party (who were just getting out of the deep labs) and things quickly turned into a good old stand-off. Anne and Linh were planning to launch their surprise attack when Edith surprisingly took the initiative. She announced the thing she'd retrieved from the labs was a massive bomb and essentially took everyone hostage. She gathered the party around herself and made to move out, but then suddenly pushed a button on the device. There was an immediate bright flash... ...and suddenly the party was all alone in the hallway. Except... the hallway wasn't quite right. The air was a bit stale. The floor rather dusty. They explored along, and the entire place was utterly abandoned. They ventured deeper and eventually stumbled upon an information display. It showed the current date: 26.12.2947. 181 years later than when they'd been right before, down to the exact day. To make matters more confusing, they weren't entirely alone after all. They were found by a figure in heavy powered armour. A suit of armour that appeared to be identical to the one worn by the guy who popped into the birthday celebration. Except this time he wasn't wearing a helmet, and William in particular was somewhat distressed to recognise that it was the same guy who'd tried to stop them in the deep labs. The guy that William had slapped around with a robotic arm. Fortunately, he wasn't one to hold a grudge. Instead, he gave everyone a brief rundown on what had happened. The party had indeed been moved in time, something that is a possible, albeit virtually unheard-of, side-effect of JumpShip technology. However, you can't just move around to whenever you please. So far, it was only possible to jump between certain "stable" points in time, and time continued to flow concurrently between those points. I.e. if you were to wait an hour in this future and then go back, you'd come out one hour after you left back in your original time. The guy then basically told the party to get the hell back to their own time and please, please, please don't gently caress around with the timeline. For the moment, the party was content to do just that. They used his submarine to get themselves back to the main habitat while they were still in the future, as it held the spacecraft docks. They used the device again and found themselves back in their own time, momentarily safe with none of the coupists having any idea where they were. They used the opportunity to get all their stuff, and in Ryan's case his wife, and armed up for what laid ahead. They regrouped and entered an elevator, which was already occupied by a quartet of unassuming businessmen. Despite Ryan and Linh's rather blunt hints to get the gently caress lost they stayed there while the party piled in. Ryan fired a warning shot to make them move. But instead of running, the "businessmen" all pulled out pistols and attacked. And that was when poo poo went all The Raid up in there. Anne went to pistol whip one guy, rolled insanely high, and just dislocated his shoulder with a single blow. Not above kicking a man while he's down, she also kneed him in the gut for good measure. Linh did the John Wick, elbowing he businessman closest to her to momentarily stun him and then used the opportunity to blast him point blank with her shotgun, nearly taking his leg off. Bernhard tried to take part in this whole strange "shooting guns" business, but missed and instead got himself hit so badly that he almost lost a foot. Ryan expertly doubletapped one enemy, somehow managing to hit him in the shoulder with one shot and in the ankle with the next (the random hitlocations are weighted towards the limbs a tad heavily ). Still, it was easily enough to make the guy go down for good. Linh then just grabbed the remaining guy and bodily threw him out of the elevator, allowing them to slam the door closed and make their escape.And then, with William performing emergency surgery on Bernhard and everybody looking a little worse for the wear, Edith revealed her escape plan: As the space port was most likely to be guarded, they wouldn't try to get a shuttle. Instead, they'd be using the Orbital Launch Device. Which was basically just an absolutely massive railgun used to shoot cargo pods (usually without anything alive on them) into orbit where they'd rendezvous with the local orbital station... Fake edit: Goddamn, this turned out to be way more  than I'd planned. Anyway, this game is probably one of the fastest-moving ones we'd had to date yet (excepting one-shots), having a huge amount of important stuff revealed and going on (I skipped over some character-specific scenes for brevity) in just two sessions. We were surprised to find that the system we're using (A Time of War) apparently has kind of a bad reputation, as it worked really well for us so far. Character creation was something of an involved process, but it was really helpful fleshing out everybody's backstory and connecting it with the universe. Combat is detailed, varied, and very decisive. For example, the elevator brawl was all over and done with in just two combat rounds. The only thing we changed so far was doubling the EXP gains per session, as otherwise the progression would just be glacial.
Perestroika fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jul 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2017 19:36
|
|
|
Follow, the Psion is up to eight Domain powers. There's roughly a 1% chance of rolling the "wielder gets a random domain power" effect on the rod of wonder table.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 02:50
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Follow, the Psion is up to eight Domain powers. There's roughly a 1% chance of rolling the "wielder gets a random domain power" effect on the rod of wonder table. Please tell me you're also using some four-million-entry list of domains as well
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 03:21
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Please tell me you're also using some four-million-entry list of domains as well
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 03:37
|
|
|
Hey, Golden Bee, how is Sprawl to play, anyway? Like how does it stack up against more familiar things like D&D or Pathfinder mechanics-wise?
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 03:45
|
|
|
The weirdness in your games just calls to me yawgmoth
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 05:04
|
|
|
DicktheCat posted:Hey, Golden Bee, how is Sprawl to play, anyway? Like how does it stack up against more familiar things like D&D or Pathfinder mechanics-wise? It's a PBTA game. Very light, very fast. All resolution is 2D6+stat mod, 7-9 is success with complication 10+ is success with benefit. I've enjoyed it but only played a couple of one shots.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 05:16
|
|
|
DicktheCat posted:Hey, Golden Bee, how is Sprawl to play, anyway? Like how does it stack up against more familiar things like D&D or Pathfinder mechanics-wise? It also takes Apocalypse World's damage mechanics, so it can occasionally be surprisingly lethal for a cyberpunk game, but I really enjoyed playing it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 05:40
|
|
|
Coward posted:It also takes Apocalypse World's damage mechanics, so it can occasionally be surprisingly lethal for a cyberpunk game, but I really enjoyed playing it. I want to do an Altered Carbon style sprawl game so I don't have to worry about player death and can spend every session murdering and dismembering my players.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 19:33
|
|
|
I've always hated RPG's that use "HP" or let human(oid) players shrug off massive amounts of damage. "The orc slashes you with his sword, you take 18 damage!!" what does that even mean? Are you bleeding? Are you hurt? Losing HP doesn't seem to slow anyone down or have any long lasting effects so what the hell is HP? But if you do proper realistic damage and health, that arrow you took to the shoulder which crippled you for the fight has now become infected and maybe you'll die but either way you probably need some months to heal to use that arm without penalty. Solution: players are robots.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 19:37
|
|
|
Solution: arbitrary hp system as close but missed shots, like in that star wars rpg or in exalted 3rd ed or that dnd 3rd ed unearthed arcana option
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 19:39
|
|
|
curufinor posted:Solution: arbitrary hp system as close but missed shots, like in that star wars rpg or in exalted 3rd ed or that dnd 3rd ed unearthed arcana option Yeah HP as luck, determination, and only finally at the very end as flesh and blood is a cool and good way to fluff it. I'd love to see a game that makes this a little more mechanically explicit though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 19:41
|
|
|
1hp = 1 gallon of blood.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 19:57
|
|
|
curufinor posted:Solution: arbitrary hp system as close but missed shots, like in that star wars rpg or in exalted 3rd ed or that dnd 3rd ed unearthed arcana option That's the core assumption for most DnD as well, the UA option is the only one that makes it explicitly wounds
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 20:15
|
|
|
I always preferred the classic (pre-Savage Worlds) Deadlands system where your health was divided between your actual, like, bodily structural integrity and your stamina (Wind). The sections of your body had a total of five wounds, if you took the fifth wound to any body part it was Maimed, meaning useless or near-destroyed. For your head or chest this meant death. But generally it never came to that, because the average damage of a single gunshot was enough to cut your Wind in half if not deplete it all the way. Losing all your Wind meant collapsing to the ground and losing the will to fight. So in true spaghetti western fashion, you'd shoot a guy. Then he'd clutch his side, wince dramatically, and fall over. But they'd probably still be alive.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 20:20
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I've always hated RPG's that use "HP" or let human(oid) players shrug off massive amounts of damage. "The orc slashes you with his sword, you take 18 damage!!" what does that even mean? Are you bleeding? Are you hurt? Losing HP doesn't seem to slow anyone down or have any long lasting effects so what the hell is HP? Pendragon is fun: lose enough HP in a single hit "guess what, you got a major wound, let's see which stat just got lowered!" Then, of course, if you end up below half HP by the end of a battle you've been injured enough to need a chirgueon to check you out. Enjoy spending the rest of the session in bed unless you want your wound to reopen and die of the infection! Generally speaking though, hit points are a lie: either your armour absorbs everything, or your enemy got a crit and killed you. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2017 20:29
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Yeah HP as luck, determination, and only finally at the very end as flesh and blood is a cool and good way to fluff it. Exalted 3e makes it mechanically discrete; you only take actual wounds with wound penalties when enemies deal physical damage to you. Most of the fights I've run, players have jockeyed for advantage with a series of [momentum-gathering] attacks that can't deal wounds, then either kill or maim the enemy in a single blow when they have the upper hand, spending that momentum. I actually don't think a fight has progressed much past the first time that happens, but I haven't been running massively combat-focused games. Also my players tend to focus on building up momentum until they have enough to explode normal human enemies, while I have enemies throw out wounding attacks more often but with lower momentum (and less damage). It's worked pretty well. Of course I'm running a homebrew setting off Ex3 as a base, at non-Exalted combat levels, so I'm not sure if charms would totally change that dynamic.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 03:58
|
|
|
Ilor posted:Also: Trust you me, my life proves the wisdom of this brilliant person.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 04:18
|
|
WARNING! As tempting as it may be, do not stick your dick in the crazy.
|
Moto42 posted:
Just remembering an Owl shaman I used to run that could heal ANYTHING that happened to the party. Now, could he HURT anything? Not so much. On a spirit quest for infomation, he encountered himself. After missing half a clip of pistol shots, both he and his duplicate managed to jam their guns. Then it got interesting. We had a trauma slap patch fight. One more slap patch and I would have died from the drugs. But I got him first. Then, when the information came through, then came the toxic spirit...
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 07:54
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:not sure if charms would totally change that dynamic. exalted w/o charms is like dnd 3.5 w/o spells you're basically not playing the same game
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 08:00
|
|
|
curufinor posted:exalted w/o charms is like dnd 3.5 w/o spells D&D 3.5 where you're only ever interacting with the world through skill checks and saving throws vs DCs and attacks vs AC would probably be a lot more balanced.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 08:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 14:43 |
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:D&D 3.5 where you're only ever interacting with the world through skill checks and saving throws vs DCs and attacks vs AC would probably be a lot more balanced. As long as you removed every single monster that was designed to screw over martials, sure.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 08:21
|
|
