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How often are you supposed to level up the party? Asking because I'm GMing a longish campaign and want to pace it properly.
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Oct 31, 2017 06:56
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It's generally played as level after each session, but you can do it less often if you need to.
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Oct 31, 2017 07:03
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Yeah that's not gonna happen. I just binge-bought Call of the Void books, pressing all these plot hooks into one campaign is going to mean I'm gonna run outta levels 
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Oct 31, 2017 07:44
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Tias posted:Yeah that's not gonna happen. I just binge-bought Call of the Void books, pressing all these plot hooks into one campaign is going to mean I'm gonna run outta levels You could always use the (somewhat cludgey) 10+ rules in... Forbidden Rules I believe?
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Oct 31, 2017 07:56
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Tias posted:How often are you supposed to level up the party? Asking because I'm GMing a longish campaign and want to pace it properly. Technically the rule is a level-up after every adventure, which the book conflates with sessions, but in my experience that will depend heavily on how much time you spend in each session. I typically run 3-hour sessions and it can be challenging to get an entire published adventure done in that time. This may vary depending on whether you play online or in-person, of course. If you want to go beyond level 10, there are the rules in Forbidden Rules that Antilles mentioned, or you can look out for the next big book release which is going to have more in-depth rules for that stuff.
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Oct 31, 2017 10:57
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Speaking as a player, you pretty much can't go wrong with a level after each major accomplishment and/or story beat, or if there is a lengthy downtime period.
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Oct 31, 2017 11:14
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Thanks. It feels off, but I'm not sure if it's because I'm bad at GMing or my players love to dick around and shoot the breeze.
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Oct 31, 2017 14:08
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Tias posted:Thanks. It feels off, but I'm not sure if it's because I'm bad at GMing or my players love to dick around and shoot the breeze. Dicking around and shooting the breeze is some of the most fun you can have with RPGs, just go with the flow and you'll know when to hand out a level-up. I've been running Strike! for two years now, which has the GM handing out levels when it feels appropriate and that has trained me well for games like SotDL that don't have an XP system. I've been toying with a goal system where players define small and large goals for themselves and the group. Accomplishing small goals lets you gain a Fortune Point, while accomplishing a large goal (typically the objective of what would be an adventure) gets the party a level. When you accomplish a goal, you cross it off and set a new one.
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Oct 31, 2017 14:12
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Serf posted:I've been toying with a goal system where players define small and large goals for themselves and the group. Accomplishing small goals lets you gain a Fortune Point, while accomplishing a large goal (typically the objective of what would be an adventure) gets the party a level. When you accomplish a goal, you cross it off and set a new one. Since the objective of an adventure aren't often readily apparent until half-way into the adventure, I'd say in such a system the GM should set the big, 'plot' goals while the players set smaller, 'character' goals.
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Oct 31, 2017 14:38
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Antilles posted:Since the objective of an adventure aren't often readily apparent until half-way into the adventure, I'd say in such a system the GM should set the big, 'plot' goals while the players set smaller, 'character' goals. In the game I'm envisioning, the players would set their own goals for adventures they want to have. If they come into town and see a bunch of skeleborgs terrorizing the populace they might set the goal of "save the townsfolk from the skeleborgs" and through play discover that to do so they have to take down a necromancer cabal. The true objective remains the same, even if the causes behind it change. That and I'm a lazy, improv-focused GM and I like to have the players do all the hard work for me.
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Oct 31, 2017 14:56
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How much would I break the math if I were to trade the d20 for 2d10? I gather that crits would be rarer, rolls would be more consistent and less swingy (which would be the point), and success would be a little bit more likely. I don't think I mind the success being more likely, and I can just change that to 11+ if it becomes a problem, but what about crits? Thinking about having them trigger on doubles that are also successes. Any thoughts? Am I thinking too hard? Should I just use the d20?
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Nov 5, 2017 22:22
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FishFood posted:How much would I break the math if I were to trade the d20 for 2d10? I gather that crits would be rarer, rolls would be more consistent and less swingy (which would be the point), and success would be a little bit more likely. I don't think I mind the success being more likely, and I can just change that to 11+ if it becomes a problem, but what about crits? Thinking about having them trigger on doubles that are also successes. Any thoughts? Am I thinking too hard? Should I just use the d20? A lot of monsters or class effects occur "when you naturally roll higher than 20" (usually accomplished with boons), using 2d10 makes this less likely to happen. Same with the couple of 'roll less than 0' effects like the Clockwork wind-down.
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Nov 5, 2017 22:35
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FishFood posted:How much would I break the math if I were to trade the d20 for 2d10? I gather that crits would be rarer, rolls would be more consistent and less swingy (which would be the point), and success would be a little bit more likely. I don't think I mind the success being more likely, and I can just change that to 11+ if it becomes a problem, but what about crits? Thinking about having them trigger on doubles that are also successes. Any thoughts? Am I thinking too hard? Should I just use the d20? Also, don't forget only challenge rolls have a difficulty of 10, attack rolls use the opponent's relevant attribute for difficulty, which can vary greatly.
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Nov 6, 2017 02:00
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Yo thread, I've recently switched to using SotDL for my long-running campaigns and loving it. On the horizon for one of my parties is a base-building mechanic. One of my players is a noble scion from a house that has fallen into destitution, and I want to give my players something tangible and meaningful to put money and time toward. Basically, this guy comes home after years away to find his family estate in ruins. It's going to start as more or less just the dining area, kitchen, a few bedrooms, a courtyard, an empty coffer, and a few acres of land around the estate. I would then provide a list of upgrades that the party can put money toward, which would provide narrative and occasionally mechanical benefits, such as a rookery, library, smithy, and drill-yard. What I'd like advice on is the price ranges I should go with for a party of level 4 characters. For more minor things like additional bedrooms or a rookery I was thinking 30 silver, but for upgrades to the tower of the manor I was thinking 75ss-1gp. Does this sound more or less fair?
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Nov 7, 2017 01:03
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How does SotDL's wealth system work? It sounds D&D-like (and if you were asking about D&D I would say "good lord don't use actual GP costs at all, that's a terrible idea") but I don't want to assume that's the case.
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Nov 7, 2017 02:18
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It's adjusted downward. Like 30 silver is actually a decent amount by the logic of SotDL. I don't even bother with coppers, but the silver and gold system is good in the core book.
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Nov 7, 2017 02:45
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Glukeose posted:It's adjusted downward. Like 30 silver is actually a decent amount by the logic of SotDL. I don't even bother with coppers, but the silver and gold system is good in the core book. Do you still use currency to buy magical items that upgrade your character's combat capabilities? That's my main concern, whether the game treats currency as a character advancement resource as well as, well, currency -- if it does then dipping into it for fun stuff could end up gimping characters in other ways. Also I apologize for being ignorant, I thought this was the general GM advice thread and not the SotDL thread where it would make much more sense for me to already know these things. 
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Nov 7, 2017 03:36
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Do you still use currency to buy magical items that upgrade your character's combat capabilities? That's my main concern, whether the game treats currency as a character advancement resource as well as, well, currency -- if it does then dipping into it for fun stuff could end up gimping characters in other ways. No, cash isn't used to buy anything but regular gear. Enchanted objects are not thought of as something you can buy, and are instead very rare items that mostly have to be found or taken.
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Nov 7, 2017 03:40
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Do you still use currency to buy magical items that upgrade your character's combat capabilities? That's my main concern, whether the game treats currency as a character advancement resource as well as, well, currency -- if it does then dipping into it for fun stuff could end up gimping characters in other ways. Nah it's good. I considered posting in the GM thread but figured the SotDL thread would provide more specific advice.
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Nov 7, 2017 03:43
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Serf posted:I like the idea of making the problem more of a proactive thing. Confronting players and sending threats after them is a good move when you want to get them rolling down the path. My suggestion for something to add would be harvesters. They are often responsible to the abductions that take place on Urth, and since they can often blend in with normal society they make good intelligent villains who can hound the players after they return from Tarterus. If you don't want them to be the centerpiece of the adventure, maybe set up some hints that harvesters are working with the slavers. Then you can spring harvesters on them later if you want and go ahead and set up some foreshadowing now. I'm going to take this advice, because I really enjoy the harvesters as a concept( even with their creepy reproductive stuff). Thanks!
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Nov 10, 2017 13:42
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I've been playing Nioh and wishing SotDL had a late Sengoku jidai supplement because drat, is the setting ever perfect for it.
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Nov 12, 2017 19:53
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Lemon-Lime posted:I've been playing Nioh and wishing SotDL had a late Sengoku jidai supplement because drat, is the setting ever perfect for it. I don't have it, but isn't Mists of Akuma supposed to be kinda-sorta like that?
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Nov 12, 2017 20:09
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Yea Mists of Akuma isn't a great Nioh tabletop but if your group likes 5e it'll scratch that itch pretty drat well.
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Nov 12, 2017 20:38
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So uh, tonights session didn't end exactly like I planned it to, and I'm not sure how to proceed. I decided to go with a harvesters subplot. The session starts with the players discovering that a lot of corpses lacking parts have been showing up in the sewers( one of the PCs is a goblin monk whose monastery is located in the sewers below Dis), and one of the players( who is a gladiator-cum-slave revolt leader) mediate a slave dispute in the meat packing plant, where the slaves are being murdered one by one and would risk insurgence in stead of being killed on the job. One member of the kidnapped delegation suddenly dropped through their ceiling, dead, with eyes and tongue removed. He provided them with a scroll stating that in euphemistic terms that the harvesters serve the outlanders and that the rest of the delegation was dead. In the meantime, they hook up with a crime lord whose daughter was kidnapped and escaped from the harvesters behind the murder spree, and she explains where to find them. They track down the boss, a( roughly) female skin tailor named Face Tailor, and her 4 up-buffed Corpse Filch minions. Instead of fighting them, though, the goblin PC decides to convince her to only target members of the slave police for their body replacement, thus empowering their long-term goal of abolishing slavery and razing Dis. Because of their harvester expertise, the creatures easily fashion corpses looking like themselves that the players can present for the bounty - and the city is none the wiser. I gave them a load of corruption points for straight up dealing with the devil, and now I'm not sure where to take the campaign. It seems like the players are a lot more set on being antiheroes than we had originally talked about - do I continue setting them up for a greater struggle against minions of the demon lord, or do I allow their slide into moral gray areas? Knowing how players are, I'm afraid that will just encourage them towards a career as evil PCs, which isn't what the game seems to intend.
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Nov 12, 2017 21:31
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Tias posted:So uh, tonights session didn't end exactly like I planned it to, and I'm not sure how to proceed. So show them that dealing with the devil has consequences. The creatures might keep their word, for a while, only to later succumb to temptation and harvest others whose parts they think are enticing. And of course in the meantime they've relocated so the PCs can't retaliate. I don't say you should do this to "punish" the players or whatever. It's just that the harvesters are evil and trusting them to keep their word is unwise. They had a chance to prevent more victims and didn't take it, so now they should be prepared to see good people die. Hell, maybe the harvesters are coming after the PCs first, intending on removing the only people in the city who know they're still around. Faustian bargains tend to go wrong.
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Nov 12, 2017 21:37
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As long as everyone is on board with being evil (proper boundries set, etc), why not let the players go in that direction? The game does support it, after all, with f.ex. 'evil' spells and Paths. As long as they don't end up serving the Demon Lord they're still the lesser evil, and preventing the end of the world should always be on their list of objectives.
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Nov 12, 2017 22:06
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Yea I'd argue one of Shadow's biggest strengths is that it absolutely allows you to be an 'evil' party while still keeping the line of 'but there's some evil that's just loving EVIL that we do not cross into'. Obviously this comes with the usual disclaimer of 'everyone is ok with it and understands the difference between 'evil heroes' and 'shock characters' so let's not be dicks ok?' But yea, if it seems like they'd like to be lesser evil forces in the world fighting against a greater evil...I say lean into it? Maybe the Harvesters reach out to them for 'help' in a way that escalates things. Give them the choice of following that path further or realizing they're on a bad track and stepping off and all.
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Nov 12, 2017 22:25
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Sage Genesis posted:I don't have it, but isn't Mists of Akuma supposed to be kinda-sorta like that? It describes itself as "an eastern fantasy noir steampunk campaign setting" so not really, though there might be one or two things in it worth salvaging. Nioh's setting is regular historical Japan for the most part, just with decades of war resulting in monsters coming crawling out of the woodworks and people who give in to bloodlust/despair occasionally turning into demons, which makes it work pretty well for SotDL.
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Nov 12, 2017 23:20
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Yeah, SotDL kind of assumes a late middles ages or early modern setting anyways, and the generic demons and monsters can be flavored any way you like. Heck, even the decaying empire fits in with the warlordism of the Sengoku Jidai. There's no samurai or ninja classes, but you can just rename some other ones and it'll fit perfectly.
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Nov 13, 2017 03:41
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FishFood posted:Yeah, SotDL kind of assumes a late middles ages or early modern setting anyways, and the generic demons and monsters can be flavored any way you like. Heck, even the decaying empire fits in with the warlordism of the Sengoku Jidai. There's no samurai or ninja classes, but you can just rename some other ones and it'll fit perfectly. Renaissance is kinda the era I've always gone for in this game. Particularly 30 years war kind of society, especially with the growth and death of religions being a prominent feature.
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Nov 13, 2017 05:27
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Using some of the Godless rules and a lot of hacking, I'm getting a sort of fantasy Roaring 20s setting going.
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Nov 13, 2017 05:30
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FishFood posted:Yeah, SotDL kind of assumes a late middles ages or early modern setting anyways, and the generic demons and monsters can be flavored any way you like. Heck, even the decaying empire fits in with the warlordism of the Sengoku Jidai. There's no samurai or ninja classes, but you can just rename some other ones and it'll fit perfectly. Exactly. There's no extra mechanics actually required (except maybe for a few new monsters for cases where you can't just reskin existing enemies to youkai), just a setting bible and renaming classes. I wouldn't even bother with samurai and shinobi classes since those were social titles, not job descriptions (and "ninja" just refers to any stealth/sabotage expert, so you wouldn't need to worry about it until advanced paths at the very earliest). Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 09:46
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Mists of Akuma is basically fantasy steampunk with a thin veneer of Asian mysticism. It's an interesting setting but I would definitely not rely on it as a basis for a more legitimate historical world. It does have a Samurai class, but you can mimic the same effect with the source material. Rogue -> Agent (Holy Kingdom supplement) -> Infiltrator is your standard superspy course, and probably the closest to a ninja as they were historically known.
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Nov 13, 2017 18:25
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sexpig by night posted:Yea I'd argue one of Shadow's biggest strengths is that it absolutely allows you to be an 'evil' party while still keeping the line of 'but there's some evil that's just loving EVIL that we do not cross into'. Obviously this comes with the usual disclaimer of 'everyone is ok with it and understands the difference between 'evil heroes' and 'shock characters' so let's not be dicks ok?' My party deliberately threw in with the primary villain of my campaign (a Death Lord in the Desolation) because dammit they had an undead apocalypse to halt and the Crusaders have been unreliable assholes the whole time they've come to this desert shithole. They're basically hoping that if they just help him put down his rivals trying to undermine him and the good guys in the way of his ambition he'll be sufficiently satisfied to stop. It's completely thrown my planned story out the window and I've had to compensate on the fly. To quote one of my players "this spooky motherfucker is the only one who hasn't tried to dick us over since we got here. At least we know where he stands."
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Nov 13, 2017 18:36
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FunkMonkey posted:My party deliberately threw in with the primary villain of my campaign (a Death Lord in the Desolation) because dammit they had an undead apocalypse to halt and the Crusaders have been unreliable assholes the whole time they've come to this desert shithole. They're basically hoping that if they just help him put down his rivals trying to undermine him and the good guys in the way of his ambition he'll be sufficiently satisfied to stop. It's completely thrown my planned story out the window and I've had to compensate on the fly. You could introduce the Knights of the One True God( a splinter sect of the new God turned unknowingly to demon worship), they live in the patchwork lands past the desolation I believe! I know because I'm reading through Uncertain Faith right now, and uh.. let's just say Horrific Parasites isn't the only supplement with pointlessly kinky poo poo in it  Spoiler here: A sect where cultists get impregnated, regardless of their gender, by a huge burbling, eye-encrusted demon cock pillar, by "lowering themselves on it"
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Nov 14, 2017 13:14
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Do any of the supplements offer help in making your own religions for the purposes of Priest features? I don't know if I can just toss in any three traditions that make sense together or if there's additional issues to worry about. I'm going to be running a game relatively soon but I'm not a huge fan of the default setting so I'm going to be using a homebrew one for my game, and I need to come up with gods/religions for it.
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Nov 16, 2017 03:23
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Infinity Gaia posted:Do any of the supplements offer help in making your own religions for the purposes of Priest features? I don't know if I can just toss in any three traditions that make sense together or if there's additional issues to worry about. I'm going to be running a game relatively soon but I'm not a huge fan of the default setting so I'm going to be using a homebrew one for my game, and I need to come up with gods/religions for it. Uncertain Faith has a bunch of alternate priests with some remixed abilities that go with the major religions in the base setting. I would look there if you want to customize the class more to your liking. I've just gone through the pantheon I worked up and given each one three traditions that seem to fall in with their theme, so that's the lazy option.
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Nov 16, 2017 03:28
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FunkMonkey posted:My party deliberately threw in with the primary villain of my campaign (a Death Lord in the Desolation) because dammit they had an undead apocalypse to halt and the Crusaders have been unreliable assholes the whole time they've come to this desert shithole. They're basically hoping that if they just help him put down his rivals trying to undermine him and the good guys in the way of his ambition he'll be sufficiently satisfied to stop. It's completely thrown my planned story out the window and I've had to compensate on the fly. My group wound up doing nearly exactly the same. They were dealing with a fae cult who were basically worshipping a small 'family' of elves as living gods and all and wound up teaming up with the head elf purely because as much of a creepy and evil piece of poo poo he was he was A) crystal clear in acknowledging the demons as the real danger and B) super honest and upfront about his view being 'yea I'll probably manipulate and torture you for my own jollies but at least it's in exchange for keeping you safer than most'. Shadow of the Demon Lord works best when it's a loose alliance of genuinely terrible people fighting an unknowable force of pure evil.
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Nov 16, 2017 05:16
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"We can't even go to the tavern without something eating its way out of a dead body and trying to kill us. gently caress this horrible place, the skeletons can have it." - my brother.
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Nov 16, 2017 08:07
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Oh man, I find it really hard to write at the moment. I hope I can ask you guys for feedback again: I want to play up this bit about layers of evil, because my guys have somehow managed to con a senior Harvester into helping their guerilla war against the Autarch of Dis( or maybe just ending slavery, that's what they talk about the most. I'm not sure if they realize this means fighting both the 300, the Manacles and the Bronze Elite). The overarching plot was supposed to be that evil star-beasts of Tarterus who worship the Shadow in the Void were using the harvesters to kidnap humans, but I'm thinking about putting that on hold, because I want to do something with the theme of rebellion and social upheaval. The orcs have taken Caecras' throne just under a month of game-time ago, and the players are sure to hear of it soon. Perhaps something about bands of ork raiders threatening the city? The players have two orks who want to abolish their own slavery and preferably that of all other slaves. One is a regular ork Kunta Kinte and desires for orks to rise up and create a better society. I'm kinda stumped on how to work it into the chronicle. Their bondage keeps them in the city, so perhaps I should give them the choice that they can escape the city, but that would invalidate the work they have done to create the insurrection so far. The other players have less scrutable goals. One is a morally flexible goblin monk who was the one who conned the harvesters into helping them, the other is a human wizard abolitionist, but the player seems a lot more interested in learning forbidden magic. There's got to be a way to link all this together, but I haven't been a GM for a long time, and have sort of hit a wall. I'm sorry if this sounds like me wanting you to do my homework for me, but I don't really have any problems running an enjoyable session, it's writing the plot I find hard 
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Nov 25, 2017 23:03
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