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Here's some okay gaming to counter balance that clusterfuck of a PDF: My group and I are starting a new game soon, with me (as custom at this point) in the DM chair. So we made a web together, each of us rolling initiative to determine the order we fill it in. The end result was a world that had just begun an industrial revolution - steam engines were top of the line - where technology is steadily replacing magic as the dominant force. They interfere with each other, represented by spell failure/tech failure chances at certain times, and I adore my party to be. A goblin technician who runs an apothecary illegally, who is a budding chemist and botanist. A changeling student of a prestigious college, who is steadily working on a suit of power armor as her personal school project. And a clockwork android, created as an anomaly by his aging 'father' who was captured by a group of mad scientists. He was infused with magic, due to him having a soul of sorts, and is the only sapient robot -and- the first successful/non explosive example of fusing magic and machinery in the setting. The game is going to start with them traveling by blimp to the major trade hub of the country - where the Changeling and Goblin live and work - and most likely the game will rarely involve combat. It's going to be a social game, mostly about the interlocking politics of the varying schools and guilds, and the party's efforts to climb in society. This is gonna be fun! First session this Monday, assuming I can kick this loving cold.
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Nov 9, 2017 23:24
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What do you mean by "made a web"? What system are you using?
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Nov 10, 2017 00:19
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Pathfinder, with some third party! The web is planning web - start with the middle which is primary setting: Earth for instance - and take turns adding paths out that interconnect and make a single cohesive setting. Every bubble in the web is an immutable fact about the setting, and a primary detail of the game. For instance, in the country the group is in there's a -huge- gladitorial combat scene, and the betting there is a way countless fortunes are gained and lost. The current trend for arenas is matches against older casters and brash young gunslingers. People make a killing in tickets and the bets for those matches are a bit absurd. If I didn't explain it well enough, I'll edit this with a screenshot of the web when I get home in a few hours
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Nov 10, 2017 00:42
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senrath posted:Hackmaster 5e uses training time by default and the game I'm in used it for a while, typically everyone was training at once so it didn't really matter. For the times things were desynced the others did their own stuff in town. I should also note that once the plot actually started picking up we stopped caring about training time at all because it was getting in the way of story flow.
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Nov 10, 2017 01:21
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Yawgmoth posted:I understand the thought processes that lead to it, but it's never a good idea. As you said, it breeds contempt and furthermore it breeds the same behavior you're trying to curtail even more, even by people who normally wouldn't behave that way. Case in point:
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Nov 10, 2017 02:01
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Galick posted:Here's some okay gaming to counter balance that clusterfuck of a PDF: Hello Arcanum.
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Nov 10, 2017 02:31
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Synthbuttrange posted:Hello Arcanum. Won't lie, Arcanum came up more than once during discussion! Anyway, here. This is a heavily cropped screenshot of what I meant by the web. We rolled a d20 for initiative and then just took turns going in order to add a new thing to the web until it was time for bed for some of us due to work. It was fun!
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Nov 10, 2017 03:11
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Galick posted:Won't lie, Arcanum came up more than once during discussion! That’s unfortunately illegible. Maybe png instead of jpeg?
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Nov 10, 2017 03:19
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Subjunctive posted:That’s unfortunately illegible. Maybe png instead of jpeg? Looks fine to me? 
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Nov 10, 2017 08:00
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Galick posted:Anyway, here. This is a heavily cropped screenshot of what I meant by the web. We rolled a d20 for initiative and then just took turns going in order to add a new thing to the web until it was time for bed for some of us due to work. It was fun! I've never heard of doing it like that before, but it sounds like a neat way of doing things. I'd like to use something similar in future, but I'm not sure I totally get it. The basic idea seems to be that the central circle ("Spellpunk setting") is what you start with, then everyone, in order, adds a circle that connects to an existing circle. Can you also link two existing circles? So if someone wrote "airships are the newest and coolest thing around and they're quickly becoming a normal part of life" and someone else wrote "wizards use bound demons for various tasks, this is mostly illegal", could I add an arrow or circle between the two saying "airships are powered by bound demons and there's a whole huge coverup about it involving the wizard colleges and engineering guilds"? e: I can read it fine too.
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Nov 10, 2017 09:42
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Tunicate posted:Looks fine to me? Hmm, yes, that’s better. Maybe some mobile interface transcoding on imgur. Thanks!
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Nov 10, 2017 13:41
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AlphaDog posted:I've never heard of doing it like that before, but it sounds like a neat way of doing things. I'd like to use something similar in future, but I'm not sure I totally get it. Yeah! It's whatever you want, honestly. It's a ton of fun and really gets your players engaged, because it's -their- setting now too. And I'm glad that you can all see the picture! There were a few like that on the outer edges of the web, but there are no real rules for this. It's just whatever works 
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Nov 10, 2017 20:44
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Yawgmoth posted:This is one of the two major reasons I hate training times, by the by. If your plot is engaging, you don't want to be putting it on hold repeatedly; if your plot can withstand being interrupted multiple times like that, why is it your plot? I don't know, I can see how if you're looking to run an epic game spanning decades where the plot takes a long time to unfold, that kind of thing could work. In your standard save-the-world fantasy plot it totally wouldn't.
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Nov 11, 2017 09:54
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Whybird posted:I don't know, I can see how if you're looking to run an epic game spanning decades where the plot takes a long time to unfold, that kind of thing could work. In your standard save-the-world fantasy plot it totally wouldn't.
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Nov 11, 2017 17:36
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It matters if “we don’t have time to train, we have to get to Woodlark Mills before the ritual is complete” represents an interesting discussion. If the world can advance in meaningful ways around the players, then the timescale has consequence.
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Nov 11, 2017 17:50
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With training I have found that a useful conceptualisation is that, while training, it is like the player is "at work" they still come home at nights and can have meaningful inputs into the campaign. If plot reasons mean that training has to be delayed or interrupted then attaching no penalty to this is also useful. Allowing self training at a reduced efficiency is also a useful conceit. The party has to undertake a long boat voyage to get to McGuffin Beta. While in transits the fighter takes the time to level up. This takes X*2 weeks as opposed to X if they did it at the fighter's guild. If a restriction allows for dramatic game play as players attempt to find a resolution then it's an OK restriction. If it doesn't then streamline it on the fly until it fits. A restriction that spurred one group of players onto exceptional solutions may just bore another. It is in realising this and being flexible that a DM perfects their art.
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Nov 12, 2017 03:52
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I've been running dumb white wolf games for a decade and a half now, and my Mage: the Ascension games will forever be amazing. To me, at least. Just tonight, my party of Arete 4 mages, who include an Akashic brother with an attack pangolin, a Boston Pink Hat, a classy as hell english wizard, a naked Cultist of Ecstasy who nobody with less than willpower 8 understands wears no clothes, and a Euthanatos with an unhealthy urge to watch fox news and clean his pistol, had an awful time getting back their stolen TV from a couple of tweakers based on actual forums goons Mom and Cumshitter. edit: oxford comma
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Nov 12, 2017 05:06
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Cartoon posted:With training I have found that a useful conceptualisation is that, while training, it is like the player is "at work" they still come home at nights and can have meaningful inputs into the campaign.
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Nov 12, 2017 11:14
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I always just threw in some downtime after each adventure. Formalized training times sound like a real headache.Doomtalker posted:Just tonight, my party of Arete 4 mages, who include an Akashic brother with an attack pangolin, a Boston Pink Hat, a classy as hell english wizard, a naked Cultist of Ecstasy who nobody with less than willpower 8 understands wears no clothes, and a Euthanatos with an unhealthy urge to watch fox news and clean his pistol, had an awful time getting back their stolen TV from a couple of tweakers based on actual forums goons Mom and Cumshitter. Define awful time.
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Nov 12, 2017 11:20
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Splicer posted:I thought the point of an xp based system is that the orc punching WAS the "training". "Why are you stronger now?" "I spent several months punching orcs every day. Builds muscle", not "I spent several months punching orcs, which is for some reason a requirement for renewing my gym membership." Training times work for exactly one concept, and I've never seen it IRL: The game where there are multiple adventuring parties (and maybe DMs), players are encouraged to have more than one PC (but not in the same session), and the world's persistent across groups. Theoretically, you use a system that handles a (smallish) range of levels in the same party, so nobody needs to exactly match. Training times (and different xp gain across classes, and long healing times, etc) mean that your highest level PC isn't always available, and that encourages players to move between groups. A small amount of handwaving is necessary to get whatever PC to whatever group, but considering the setup is assumed to be a hexcrawl kinda thing with everyone in a frontier region that's full of adventurers, it's not that unbelievable that one or two people set out a couple days behind whatever group and have now caught up. Like I said, I've never seen it happen, and I have my doubts it ever played out like that over any kind of extended time, but it does sound kinda neat.
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Nov 12, 2017 11:37
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Isn't training time mostly a throwback to 1st edition D&D, back when Paladins actually had to tithe and Elves could only reach Fighter level 18? I mean, for certain classes, it was at least halfass plausible - Wizards may need additional book learning to handle the magical energy of higher level spells, or a Monk would need to return to the Monastery to be tested and be granted their new rank, that sort of thing. At this point though, it seems more like a fun tax than anything that serves a purpose.
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Nov 12, 2017 13:16
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The 3.5 PHB says that you gain XP, and once you have enough, you gain a level. Then it goes on and explicitly says this about training:PHB p.58 posted:Training and Practice: Characters spend time between adventures training, studying, or otherwise practicing their skills. This work consolidates what they learn on adventures and keeps them in top form. If, for some reason, a character can’t practice or train for an extended time, the DM may reduce XP awards or even cause the character to lose experience points. There's literally no reason to think that once you have the required XP that you'll then need to track down a trainer to train you, that's what the adventure is for!
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Nov 12, 2017 23:27
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the_steve posted:Isn't training time mostly a throwback to 1st edition D&D, back when Paladins actually had to tithe and Elves could only reach Fighter level 18? Yes, and like a lot of AD&D stuff it wasn't communicated very well that those rules were optional. There's a page of dumb, specific rules and tables and formulae about what a PC must do to actually gain a level. Easy to miss the one line in the first paragraph that says that it's "a matter for you, the DM, to decide". AD&D is full of stuff like that, where there's pages of rules about a thing and one line somewhere in them that says something like "obviously the DM can include this or not, as they see fit". 2nd ed broke a bunch of that stuff out into blue-backgrounded boxes clearly labelled "optional rule" or "tournament rule".
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Nov 12, 2017 23:52
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Not be a RPG hipster or anything, but XP is kinda an outdated system, and things like the problems with training is just a symptom of how bad/cumbersome it is.  I really like the 13th age (and other systems probibly do it too) system of you just level every 4-5 sessions, with an expectation of a harder "boss battle" at the end of an arc. I remember back in my 3.5 days our party was able to spend a year training, crafting equipment with no consequences for some reason when there was a BBG out there we knew about.
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Nov 13, 2017 06:14
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I assume he had to train too.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:02
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Foolster41 posted:Not be a RPG hipster or anything, but XP is kinda an outdated system, and things like the problems with training is just a symptom of how bad/cumbersome it is. I rather enjoy games that involve the concept of “learn by doing” rather than XP and levels. Games like Twilight:2000 , Traveller, Harnmaster, Afternath! all did away with levels and instead, every time you used a skill under pressure (no taking ten or taking twenty) you immediately rolled a check to see if your skill went up a point. You could also spend downtime practicing by consuming supplies like ammo or laboratory gear or textbooks or whatever and every X time period you got a chance to improve. The systems had their downsides (let’s take a year off and become snipers!) but over all it was a lot more logical.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:14
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Foolster41 posted:Not be a RPG hipster or anything, but XP is kinda an outdated system, and things like the problems with training is just a symptom of how bad/cumbersome it is. Even D&D 5e has this now. It's been ages since I've read the PHB, but it might even be recommended as the standard way of awarding XP rather than chalking up XP per encounter. Either way, it's definitely presented as a possibility and one of a few alternatives. I like how Apocalypse World does XP though. It feels unique and rewards you developing your character in ways you might not have otherwise considered.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:59
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Had a fun game of Betrayal at House on the Hill the other night. The haunting was the one where you have to beat Death at chess. So, Death is in the Basement, and my friend Julia is in the attic. She finds the Angel Feather item (When you need to roll a die, you can choose a number from 0-8 and say you rolled that.) On her turn, she gets an event where if she fails a roll, the ghost of a woman in Civil War era clothing will warp her to a random room. Panicking and not reading the entirety of the card, she uses the feather. My friend Dave stares at her, trying to process what happened. Dave: "Why did you do that!? You could have won the game!" Julia: "I didn't want to get taken away!" Dave: "You could have gone to the basement and just told Death that you win." Julia: "But the ghost was going to take me away and I didn't want that to happen!"
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Nov 13, 2017 08:10
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the_steve posted:not reading the entirety of the card I thought this one person I know was unique about doing this. Regardless of the game, they will often not read the whole card until prompted. It's super frustrating in co-op games because I'm trying not to quarterback but they do it often enough that I occasionally get the urge to yell "WHAT DOES IT SAY AFTER THAT, FUCKWIT?" at them. Is not reading the whole card a common thing for people to do? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 10:45
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AlphaDog posted:I thought this one person I know was unique about doing this. Regardless of the game, they will often not read the whole card until prompted. It's super frustrating in co-op games because I'm trying not to quarterback but they do it often enough that I occasionally get the urge to yell "WHAT DOES IT SAY AFTER THAT, FUCKWIT?" at them. She basically got to the part where it says "If you fail, the ghost spirits you away..." and she decided "gently caress that, I don't wanna go anywhere."
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Nov 13, 2017 11:19
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AlphaDog posted:Training times work for exactly one concept, and I've never seen it IRL: The game where there are multiple adventuring parties (and maybe DMs), players are encouraged to have more than one PC (but not in the same session), and the world's persistent across groups. Ars Magica does something really similar You have two characters, a mage and a "companion" for another player's mage (also a pool of community characters called "grogs" which anyone can use, they are mostly super normal boring people) Like 70% of the game is basically management for how you spend your time year to year, be it training or making new spells or just reading some books or maybe doing some odd jobs for money Classic adventures only happen when either the GM (who's supposed to rotate through the group and has their own characters) decides to throw one of the story elements at the players (you character AND "home" gen in ars, taking bad poo poo that might happen to your wizard house to give you points to buy nice poo poo you can use to get stronk) or when one of the players goes "oh poo poo, I need more of X which we don't really get near the house, I want to adventure to get some more X" I've been in 3 Ars Magica games and in exactly none of them have we worked out how to play it properly I loving love the system and the idea... But in execution it turns out to be an incredibly dull math/rules exercise. Especially when 1 or more players gets stuck one year and can't work out wtf to do or messes up a rule and the party spend like half an hour IRL trying to debug how they hosed up so hard The time you actually get to go on an adventure is pretty rad though, since you are a pratically unstoppable force no matter which school of wizardry you decide to go down. A group can easily consist of like 1/2 wizards and 4/5 totally normal dudes with swords and they'll happily take down castles/cities/countries in low fantasy Europe However since 100% of your character development is done via time progression, you end up doing 3 hours IRL of math to get a new spell or something I guess it'd be much more fun if you were super good at the rules and didn't need to cross reference poo poo the entire time, but I honestly can't be bothered to learn it when there's other more accessable poo poo out there already... Sorry Ars  edit: After I wrote this, I thought some more about it. Something I've just realised is that XP gain for going on an adveture is fairly average, however you are actually better reading specific books on the subject or getting training from a teacher in the subject... So the game basically doesn't reward actually having fun with an adventure as much as it does managing your resources properly... What a weird game kaffo fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 15:22
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Yeah I much prefer how Follow does the "You have a sidekick character" thing. In Follow you create a main character that you always play in your scenes. The focus of the scenes rotates as a way of spreading around GM responsibilities. You also roll a character for when its not your scene. Your second character has a story link with someone else's character. For instance in a Superhero game the main characters were a third generation hero, Not Nick Fury, and an emerging technopath. The side characters were the third gen heroes dad, a junior agent and the technopaths handler. The old hero was because Knockoff Fury needed an excuse to be in combat scenes and the two junior agents made the more espionage style scenes work.
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Nov 13, 2017 21:59
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kaffo posted:Ars Magica does something really similar Yeah... I love Ars Magica. It is my favorite game, and the downtime system is a big part of that. But drat does it get bogged down in the math sometimes. Spreadsheets help, and I discard the whole "companion" thing since doubling book keeping is nobody's friend.
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Nov 13, 2017 23:34
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Kaza42 posted:Yeah... I love Ars Magica. It is my favorite game, and the downtime system is a big part of that. But drat does it get bogged down in the math sometimes. Spreadsheets help, and I discard the whole "companion" thing since doubling book keeping is nobody's friend. I can totally see why you'd bail on the companions, you could quite easily throw together some groggs and they'd do pretty much the same thing Do you play online? I think that was one of our mistakes, we tried to play it IRL and it was awful. There were people trying to read PDFs off tiny phone screens, or having to share the one core book between 2/3 people. Add in a couple of players who just didn't really want a system with any crunch, so they just picked the easiest possible option every season (usually pick a random book from the library or pratice an art) who would then complain ingame when their characters were underperforming because they'd just simply not managed their character's time well.... I think I'd like an online game of Ars, with a totally different group and me as far away from GMing it as possible. However I doubt that will ever happen I just realised I was talking about Ars in general and accidently brought this back into a gaming stories context. Congrats me!
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Nov 14, 2017 09:19
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ELENDOR GODENDER PART 3 - THE END OF ELENDOR Double post, but I think this needs it's own post Find below the final tale of Elendor Godender Dumb Kaffo from Days Gone By posted:Elendor and the rest of the crew arrived at Vivec. All attempts to pry information out of Elendor (like why he was lightly singed) were met with grunts and hand waves After that the party never looked for him, turns out they didn’t like him very much The sneaky dude did find him like 2 IRL years later in the same game, in that sewer, as a throwback by the GM. He apparently shed a single tear for Elendor more than he deserved in my opionion All that actually happened (bar some bad memories and a few creative touches) and I still feel lovely about it I actually had another, shorter lived, character right after Elendor. A merchant who was a compulsive lyer and was genuinely scared of fighting. So you can see that I didn't get any better soon after Elendor After that guy died, I left the game. The GM and I never really spoke after that, I guess it was partly me realising I'd been a dick and him knowing I was If he ever reads all this, I hope he can at least laugh at it now and maybe realise I was kinda immature at the time and I'm sorry I was that guy but hey... I'm actually fun to play games with now so it's all experience right? Thanks for reading goonfriends. Writing this has been fun and I might do other (actually good) games if I have time 
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Nov 14, 2017 11:19
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AlphaDog posted:I thought this one person I know was unique about doing this. Regardless of the game, they will often not read the whole card until prompted. It's super frustrating in co-op games because I'm trying not to quarterback but they do it often enough that I occasionally get the urge to yell "WHAT DOES IT SAY AFTER THAT, FUCKWIT?" at them. Yep. Our group even has a name for it, after a player who wouldn’t read the whole description of abilities in 3e or 4e D&D.
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Nov 14, 2017 12:31
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hyphz posted:Yep. Our group even has a name for it, after a player who wouldn’t read the whole description of abilities in 3e or 4e D&D. lol, same.
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Nov 14, 2017 15:54
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kaffo posted:I can totally see why you'd bail on the companions, you could quite easily throw together some groggs and they'd do pretty much the same thing So, I've never been able to keep an Ars Magica game running, but that is mostly due to bad luck with scheduling. Here's my advice: Yes, I play it online. Stress dice are just annoying enough that being able to have a scripted "Just type (stress)" that handles it all makes people much more willing to use it Spreadsheets are a fantastic way to keep track of libraries, laboratories and covenant stuff. While you're at it, having a semi-automated character sheet is also grand. ( here is a google sheet I made for ars magica. It's not perfect, but handles a lot of stuff for you, including a toggle for the common Arts as Abilities houserule) There's also an Ars Magica Character Builder. I can't find the one I used earlier, but here is a decent starting point online. It doesn't handle character progression though
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Nov 14, 2017 16:05
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Falstaff posted:lol, same. He also didn’t think through his ability use a lot of the time. As in, he cast a permanent Greater Consumptive Field on himself and was shocked when every innocent villager he went past while he was shopping just dropped dead.
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Nov 14, 2017 16:08
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kaffo posted:ELENDOR GODENDER PART 3 - THE END OF ELENDOR Crikey, that makes me think of my Owl Shaman EMT in a Shadowrun campaign. He was pretty much spec'd as a major healer. I ended up going on one of those vision quests for some crucial information (I was the only shaman). Ended up battling myself. After several rounds, both of us had critically jammed our handguns, and we got in a duel of applying trauma slap patches to each other (the meds in them are made to keep people from dying, so they do bad things to healthy people). I ended up JUST winning that one.
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Nov 14, 2017 17:06
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