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Of yeah, I forgot about the elements fire, dust, ice, etc. gotta keep our extremely realistic game extremely realistic.
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Mar 14, 2018 12:20
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They probably just wanted to play http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Snowflame_(New_Earth) anyway.
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Mar 14, 2018 12:23
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Maybe in his world cocaine elemental are really powerful - a cocaine mephit might be more appropriate.
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Mar 14, 2018 15:13
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Beware the crack rock elemental.
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Mar 14, 2018 15:43
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The Royal Alchemic Academy located in the lively city of Freebase.
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Mar 14, 2018 18:32
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What are some good suggestions for the government interrogating my party about an expedition they have been on? I was thinking something along the lines of: 1) DM one-on-one with each player, to keep the rest in the dark. Maybe DM and two players, but one of them gets Zone of Truth'd unbeknownst to the other for that spicy "I lied to cover out rear end but you arent?!" action 2) Some way to detect lies to see if the PCs lie to the officials 3) Zone of Truth later to force a correct account, probably in response to a lie from 2) 4) Using true or falsified testimony from a previous PC to rattle the next They are trying to cover up the (justified) murder of a Dragonborn escort they had been sent with, but the problem is the reigning power in the Empire is all Dragonborn, and these Inquisitors would also be Dragonborn, so I expect the PCs to be shady. Instead of just slamming them with a Zone of Truth I want this to be creative and suspenseful, and then potentially catch them in a lie later. They're 3rd level so AFAIK weaseling around this would be creative but difficult for them.
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Mar 14, 2018 18:44
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Just have the Inquisitors refuse to believe anything the party says, even if its the truth.
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Mar 14, 2018 19:11
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Or let them believe everything the party says, except the things that are true.
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Mar 14, 2018 19:17
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I'm stealing the cocaine elemental idea thanks.
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Mar 14, 2018 19:41
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kaffo posted:The Reason I'm Posting All This One of the most memorable encounters from back when I ran Exalted (back in the bad old days of 1e) was having my PCs encounter a library in a Manse that they were looking to reclaim. Said library was maintained and overseen by a powerful spirit - essentially the Local God of a very old and well-stocked library, meaning that it was pretty boss. It was also quite friendly to anyone who did not raise their voice above a whisper. Anyone who spoke too loud would get shushed, and if they persisted, then they'd get smacked by spirit powers, but they wisely chose not to persist, so it was cheerful and friendly and happy to help them out. When asked what the spirit might wish for in return for its help, its response was "I would like some more books, please. I am certain that there have been notable volumes published in the last several centuries that I've had no chance to obtain, so maybe you could help me by bringing me some?" Point is, Underground City that has been abandoned for centuries and is running along on its own steam will have a bunch of pissed-off death robot guardians, yes, but it'll also have a bunch of spirits/robots/whatever that have been puttering along with nothing to do and would be happy to finally have a chance to do the things they were literally created to do. A bartender-bot who just wants to serve you beer and listen to your sob stories, you guys, please, he's been down here alone for ever. Janitor-bots who sigh unhappily as they are forced to pick up their brooms and mops for the first time in living memory. Taxi-bots who haven't had anyone to transport for so long that they're willing to give the PCs a ride for free (shame that in the intervening years their tires have rotted away and they can't actually go anywhere - but don't worry, they've put in a requisition for new tires, they'll be here any minutes, I'm just going to lock you all inside the passenger compartment so you don't leave while we wait...). A teacher-bot who seizes the youngest-looking PC, sets them down at a desk, and refuses to let them leave until they've heard a lesson about the glorious history of (insert long-dead First Age Solar Exalted here).
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Mar 14, 2018 20:03
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Power: white nights, pick a random wiki page and make the player explain why it's really really important until the start of their next turn
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Mar 14, 2018 20:06
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I have been shanghaied into running a game of Pendragon (a game about being a Glorious Knight in the Age of King Arthur - if you want to read a bunch of words I wrote about it for FATAL & Friends ages ago go here) once our current game is done. It did not take much convincing. At our last gaming night get-together one of the other players says to me "DCB, I'm worried about you. I don't know how you're going to survive until you get to run Pendragon, you're way too excited about it." And we laughed, because it's true; I probably won't get a chance to run until April at the earliest, and I'm pretty psyched. Except today I found myself buying arts and crafts supplies so I could build a custom GM screen out of illustration board that has plastic sleeves so I can swap out what maps and charts and such get displayed, and I'm starting to think he's right. send help
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Mar 14, 2018 20:08
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Razorwired posted:Just have the Inquisitors refuse to believe anything the party says, even if its the truth. After each bit of testimony, roll a hidden die or flip a coin to decide if they believe it or not, but have them respond the same skeptical way regardless ("Oh really? Well, if that's how you want to tell me it went...")
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Mar 14, 2018 20:24
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I'm more concerned with mind games opposed to them rolling Insight versus the PCs, as they will simply record anything they are told and don't care whether it is true or not since they can force ZoT on the PCs. But that won't make the PCs nearly as nervous.
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Mar 14, 2018 20:40
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sebmojo posted:Power: white nights, pick a random wiki page and make the player explain why it's really really important until the start of their next turn Weapon Focus: Fishmech
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Mar 14, 2018 21:10
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:One of the most memorable encounters from back when I ran Exalted (back in the bad old days of 1e) was having my PCs encounter a library in a Manse that they were looking to reclaim. Said library was maintained and overseen by a powerful spirit - essentially the Local God of a very old and well-stocked library, meaning that it was pretty boss. Thanks for the ideas dude! I'm going to try to keep it semi serious, but I can defiantly work these in and keep the tone. Especially the taxi bot, that might scare the crap out of them  Can't wait for Tuesday, it's gonna be great!
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Mar 15, 2018 00:01
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kaffo posted:Thanks for the ideas dude! Depending on how sentient the constructs are, even the semi-joking stuff can be awfully drat serious - just think how it must feel for that Bartender Bot to see its first customers in millenia walk through the door... and then it turns out they're not thirsty. He'd be so crushed! Pathos is very fitting for an Exalted game, don't be afraid to lean into it.
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Mar 15, 2018 01:44
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Depending on how sentient the constructs are, even the semi-joking stuff can be awfully drat serious - just think how it must feel for that Bartender Bot to see its first customers in millenia walk through the door... and then it turns out they're not thirsty. He'd be so crushed! Pathos is very fitting for an Exalted game, don't be afraid to lean into it. I've been thinking about it and I've got a V2 of the original idea, I just need to think about how to get some feels into it The city has a highly sophisticated power grid, all powered off essence, which keeps the entire place running The elementals in the spire are the power source, the raw essence they emit is captured and fed into the grid via thick, magically crafted cables around the city The problem is, since the elementals have become black with hatred, boredom and a desire for revenge for their imprisonment, the energy flowing around the city is now also tainted, rendering many of the services either corrupt or non-functional This is why the city has shown up now, the barrier protecting it from the tons of desert sand it's hidden under is starting to fail as it becomes increasingly unstable and less of the corrupt elemental's raw essence gets to the barrier. The Circle enter through a hole in the barrier and if they look up, they'll see holes in the "sky" (which will be dark and full of thunder/lightning) where sand is pouring through like water The deathbots recharge every so often at the spire, hence they still have power, since they are getting it pretty much right from the source, but their essence "batteries" are visibly black and deep red This is a good excuse for why stuff like the taxi bots don't really work right, or when activated attempt to murder the players I'm going to make it clear as they travel around that there's a distinction between dark red (corrupted by the damned elemental''s essence) stuff that's on but "evil", blue/white (either via a reserve source, or powered by one of the PC's own motes) for active/working as intended and non-illuminated for things that are just out of battery This means they can walk into the library, which has long since lost power, and channel motes into the battery there to power up an archive to try and find out some history/information about the city Likewise they can walk into the bar and power bar-bot to get their sad, sad tales Lastly, this means they've got more to think about at the end when they stand face to face with the elementals. These things are clearly corrupting the city and if left unchecked will escape and the city will fall to the crushing sands. What do they do? Can they replace the corrupt elementals? Can they cleanse them? Will they sacrifice enough of their own motes to keep the shield going while they go find an alternative solution? Will they maybe find a way to "convert" the corrupt essence to something useful? Thinking about it, the spire is kinda like an artificial manse, with the elementals being used to generate the demesne
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Mar 15, 2018 09:12
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I had a session where my players were (peacefully) interrogated by an enemy- it was allegedly a ‘job interview’, since the PCs were trying to infiltrate their organization. They were Zone of Truthed, and it actually worked really well since everyone was aware that the spell allows a person to be evasive and misleading or not answer questions, just not *actually lie with their words*. I gave them a little wiggle room in their questions ~most of the time~, but made them sweat pretty hard by the end of it. My players enjoyed it, but they love social encounters/puzzles. I’d imagine this approach would really vary in effectiveness by group, though. I guess my advice is, if you go the ZoT route, make sure your players know and abuse the spell rules.
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Mar 15, 2018 13:24
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I ran the session last night and actually had varying results. First off, I did one-on-one with each PC and the interrogator. They were asked a series of leading questions that were particularly pointed. The Interrogator made no rolls to discern truth and I didn't have my PCs roll deception because 90% of the time they were telling half truths. More importantly, the interrogator wasn't concerned with catching them in a lie at that moment. At the end they got ZoT'd and asked if they had spoken any lies. Some of them actually did flat out lie, but some had been clever. Unfortunately, for the last few players, the Interrogator had gone from very general to very accurate and pointed with the ZoT questions since after three similar yet separate accounts, of which some were botched, the NPC had a keen idea of the truth and eked out the last of it. Only one player, the first to go and the most clever of the group, dodged ZoT at the end. I have some players that aren't big on RP that actually got huffy when they were ZoT'd and instead of being creative tried to weasel out of it ooc. Except we all know what they know. I gave the party a day to prepare and they had knowledge they would be interrogated, but the ZoT was a twist. So no excuse for sloppy play. I guess you can't lead a horse to water. These were the same payers that upon arrival to the first large town in the adventure so far - and their first time in civilization - took two weeks of downtime not exploring, not buying anything, and not role-playing. Literally waiting for the Inquisitor to take two weeks to arrive from another town. I got a "I search the town for magic items to buy" out of one of them, which at 3rd level in a town I already established was low magic got a prompt "well, you need to finance that with a sum of coin and you've seen so far this city is not one that would be forthcoming" I could go on but at the risk of turning into a rant I'll say that half the party seemed to enjoy the twist and the other half was expectedly huffy. I'm unsure what they want out of DnD except bigger numbers and more magic items.
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Mar 15, 2018 16:36
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:If i wanted to center an adventure around what essentially a roadtrip to Waterdeep, what are so good ways to make them take the longest route possible? Any way you could take a detour through the hells?
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Mar 15, 2018 18:57
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Possibly? They are only 3rd level and I'm still new at this DM thing so I'm still not entirely sure entirely sure which way to take this thing. We have a rather large 6 person party too so that kinda complicates things All i know for sure is that our monk wants to change over to Drunken Master after finding out such a thing exists. I want him to meet a Hercule/Mr.Satan type character disguised as the stereotypically zen quite type before i let him do so though. We also just finished off The Sunless Citadel and gave them vague instructions to find more work in Waterdeep, and i know i wanna do a long rear end sidetrip to get there. That's all i got though The Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 03:21
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Radish posted:I'm stealing the cocaine elemental idea thanks. I stole it from here when someone in the US politics thread was talking about some republican talking head, it was one of the few times reading this forum left me sitting at my desk laughing to the point it hurt. Any suggestions on how to organize the character sheet for a two headed ogre?
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Mar 16, 2018 11:44
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Got an idea for something I think would be fun in a 5e campaign set mostly in the Feywild. The idea is there's a rush of prospectors to the fairy plane because word got out about these idiot fairy kings who'll trade gold literally for a song and similar. Long story short, it's not the colonial dreamworld people think and the folks getting most wealthy are the ones selling poo poo to would-be adventurers and kicking them through a mushroom circle woefully unprepared. In gameplay terms, I wanna give them a map of the prime material plane with removable labels (i.e. just making cities and landmarks separate tokens on roll20) so that they're working off a lovely prime plane map and as they explore, they start editing their map to reflect reality in the Feywild. So like they visit where their modest village is, but in the Feywild it's sprawling overgrown wreckage of the great city that came before it. They visit the mountains to the north and find them to be much bigger, more perilous, and snowy year-round because it's the seat of power for the Winter Court. That means I'll probably want a tool to easily create a detailed map myself rather than just sort of improvising around something pulled from Google. What kind of tools would be most helpful for something like this? Should I be looking into Hexographer? (Also if there's another thread I can take this to where people geek out about this sort of issue in particular, I'd be interested)
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Mar 16, 2018 17:26
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This is how i did maps for my most recent campaign - i think it worked out really well overall. For myself, i made an overworld hex map in google spreadsheets:  For each hex tile, I have a tab in the spreadsheet with monsters, npcs, items, things of note, etc. The amount of content in the tab depends on the tile.  There are a lot of benefits to doing this in google spreadsheets... I can view this on any computer, anywhere, edit it whenever, easily add tabs, combine text and graphics, do damage calculations right within sheets, etc. For the players, I gave them a few copies of a completely blank overworld map (completely blank in this case because the characters don't know anything about the land). The players have been filling it in themselves by hand with pencils and pens as they explore the world. I built this image using Sketch and Photoshop.  I have a background in art and design stuff and love making maps, but in this case I think it was a lot more meaningful + effective to give the players a blank map and let them fill it in themselves. I made a big, detailed, artsy map for a previous campaign... when the players saw it they went "oooh," but ironically, the totally blank map ended up factoring into the actual gameplay better. Just something to consider! Polo-Rican fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 17:54
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Polo-Rican posted:This is how i did maps for my most recent campaign - i think it worked out really well overall. I think that's a really cool idea and one I'll absolutely steal in the future, but in this instance, I'm trying to pay off the notion that the Feywild is a weird mirror of the prime plane. If I want to do that without spending a really substantial amount of time exploring the prime plane, I need to give them a point of reference so they say "oh we can go to the idyllic farming village of Westharbor" only to discover, say, that it's the seat of the Autumn Court stricken by lycanthropy and in a perpetual Samhain or something. In other words, they need a map pre-populated with a half-functional understanding of the world's geography. It's when they start exploring and correcting their map that they learn more about the world's true nature. I just need a tool to make it happen (though I definitely don't mind other suggestions!) Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 18:46
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Has anyone done a payload-escort type mission in tabletop? I was thinking it might be an interesting way to spice up a combat area
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Mar 16, 2018 20:25
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Hey folks, popping my head in here since I was foolish enough to agree to GM an online Age of Rebellion game for four of my friends (who are major Star Wars nerds like myself and have experience in TTRPGs, though not all of them are familiar with the FFG SWRPG system). There's actually a few different things I'd like to ask about but in the interests of clarity and avoiding gigantic walls of text I'll leave some of my queries to another post. Unfortunately my experience GMing a tabletop game can be summed up as "sweet gently caress all", though I'm not flying entirely blind as I have some experience as a player in Death Watch and Shadow Run (albeit in homebrew settings). I've also read a number of pages from much earlier in this thread and enough articles on babby's first GMing that they feel like they're coming out of my ears. The people in the SWRPG thread also provided wonderful advice to me. To provide some context, the basic premise is that the party are a group of commandos sent to shoot mans and infiltrate bases, as well as other lovely shenanigans. I'm planning on giving my players as much free reign as they'd like (for example they could suggest or kick off their own missions), though there is a main plotline and other missions for them to get involved in if they so wish. 1. One mission I was planning would involve rooting out a spy in their midst. How should I run such a mission? And how do I deal with potential culprits lying to them? I feel like rolling dice for the party to figure out what's going on might end up tripping  spy is here alarms in their heads but not rolling for it doesn't feel like the right choice either. Or are these sort of missions just asking for grief and should be avoided?2. One of my greatest weaknesses is that if I get blindsided by something I can struggle to adapt plans on the fly quickly. I can come up with countless contingencies if I put my mind to it, but if my players do something completely unexpected I'm afraid the session will judder to a halt while I scramble to think of something. Thankfully my players are understanding and are willing to help out, but it would put a dampener on letting them really flex their muscles if they had to worry about the GM freezing. I'm improving, but is there anything I could look at or do to minimise those moments of "Oh poo poo, now what?" 3. For the intro session I was going to have the shuttle they're on get hijacked by the enemy (who've also planted bombs on the shuttle). The bad guys have a hostage (one of the shuttle pilots) too. The ideal result is that although they make a drat good show of it the shuttle ends up crashing and they have to make their way to the nearest friendly base, dodging patrols and dealing with natural hazards. Now, I'd like to have them be able to show off their skills - but I'm drawing a bit of a blank as to what to do if they manage to perform flawlessly and get the shuttle unscathed to the starship waiting for them. On the one hand I really dislike the idea of making their failure preordained (especially since it would go against the spirit of the experience I'm trying to offer). But on the other hand if they succeed I can't really think of much for them to do on the ship beyond their superior wondering "How did they know who you were and which shuttle you were on?" and running through the short "you're all part of the same squad now and here's your objectives" spiel that I was going to have happen at the end. Any advice? Or hell, is this a bad idea for a first session that should be scrapped? I'd like to thank you all in advance for your assistance!
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Mar 16, 2018 21:30
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Soup Inspector posted:1. One mission I was planning would involve rooting out a spy in their midst. How should I run such a mission? And how do I deal with potential culprits lying to them? I feel like rolling dice for the party to figure out what's going on might end up tripping Start establishing consistent, regular NPCs that the players like and that like the players. Have a bunch of them - 5, 10 maybe? - and make sure they show up regularly and are a "part of the team." The pilot. The mechanic. The guy who makes small talk. Etc. They have to be regular characters or it won't mean anything when the players go "so and so is the spy." You can introduce a new character at about the time you introduce the spy plot. The spy shouldn't be this guy. I would introduce this plot along the lines of, "we've detected transmissions blah blah from your ship, and we happen to know that (one of the players) is a spy!" Now the players have to find out who the real spy is (or buddyfuck, try not to let that happen). They will want it to be the new guy. If they just immediately finger the new guy and turn him in (they would have to fabricate evidence for this - after all, command already knows it's [one of the players]) then there should be some major consequence and reveal later. If they instead do investigation, follow clues, and so on, you reveal it was actually (much liked regular character from the beginning). Trust no one etc. quote:2. One of my greatest weaknesses is that if I get blindsided by something I can struggle to adapt plans on the fly quickly. I can come up with countless contingencies if I put my mind to it, but if my players do something completely unexpected I'm afraid the session will judder to a halt while I scramble to think of something. Thankfully my players are understanding and are willing to help out, but it would put a dampener on letting them really flex their muscles if they had to worry about the GM freezing. I'm improving, but is there anything I could look at or do to minimise those moments of "Oh poo poo, now what?" If you're preparing encounters ahead of time, remember that your players don't know what encounters are what. If they avoid [Bad Guys 1] somehow by doing something you didn't expect, that's actually great because now you can use [Bad Guys 1] later on as something else, maybe even later in the same session. Doing the formulaic "choose a quest it's great" thing is a standard, but the pro move is that no matter what the players choose, it's something you prepared. If they look at the mission board and go "oh this is all lame let's go talk to a guy" then that guy will send them on a quest aaaaand ... it can be one you already prepared, right off the bounty board. The players won't know any better. When the players do something completely unexpected, that's okay too - pull some notes from the Apocalypse World skillset, and follow the game logic. You don't have to necessarily come up with something equally crazy. If they use the force to bypass a guard outside, great, very clever! What happens now? Don't try to come up with something, just ask yourself what would reasonably happen if this kind of thing had occurred in a Star Wars movie / what is the reasonable outcome that follows naturally from the thing they did? If they kill characters that have essential information for them, suddenly another character knows that information (and always has) or that information is conveniently available on their palm pilot or something. Basically, whatever you have planned, do that. You can do that by creating an illusion of choice because the players don't know the outcomes and don't know what you had planned. They are supposed to talk to George to get the codes to the base, but they killed George! Okay, well, where can they go to get the codes to the base? Maybe George has a boss. Maybe George's boss is in this other structure near the base. And maybe, amazingly, this other structure has all the encounters from in the base. Then you have a whole week or more to build a new base or maybe change the plot entirely, but you're not left stuttering because they went left instead of right. And if you absolutely can't manage what they're doing, and you don't have the knowledge of the system to compensate, just say no from within the game fiction. "We steal this spaceship and we're doing a spaceship game now." "The keys aren't in it and it can't be hacked and someone took the spark plugs, it's just straight up not gonna work." Then, after the session, have a conversation with them out of character about what kind of game they want to be playing - if they want to play a spaceship game instead of a planetary game, that's fine, but you need to know that or they're gonna keep stealing spaceships. quote:3. For the intro session I was going to have the shuttle they're on get hijacked by the enemy (who've also planted bombs on the shuttle). The bad guys have a hostage (one of the shuttle pilots) too. The ideal result is that although they make a drat good show of it the shuttle ends up crashing and they have to make their way to the nearest friendly base, dodging patrols and dealing with natural hazards. Now, I'd like to have them be able to show off their skills - but I'm drawing a bit of a blank as to what to do if they manage to perform flawlessly and get the shuttle unscathed to the starship waiting for them. On the one hand I really dislike the idea of making their failure preordained (especially since it would go against the spirit of the experience I'm trying to offer). But on the other hand if they succeed I can't really think of much for them to do on the ship beyond their superior wondering "How did they know who you were and which shuttle you were on?" and running through the short "you're all part of the same squad now and here's your objectives" spiel that I was going to have happen at the end. Any advice? Or hell, is this a bad idea for a first session that should be scrapped? Plan both scenarios to proceed the same direction. If the shuttle crash lands, it crash lands and they go about looking for the base and navigating hazards and so on. No problem, all according to plan, etc. If they succeed, great! You saved the day, good job, etc. Buuutttt we found out who planted the bombs, and they are on this planet, and we can't get you to the base exactly, so we're going to drop you off in the wilderness. Aaaand then they navigate to the enemy base, navigating environmental obstacles and so on (the exact same ones you prepared for if they had crashed as planned - don't waste your prep time). If that's all you've prepared, that's a good place to end the session, and now instead of starting the next session in the friendly base, you start it with an encounter. If you had more, then either fold the other stuff you prepared into the new scenario, or have it so they're just reconnoitering and then they go back to the ship and off you go (the B team will take care of the base they found, thanks for your work, etc.). Edit: added answers to other questions. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 21:57
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The other thing to consider is that at some level, this is a clandestine operation - everyone is trying to present people with as little "need to know" information as possible, so ideally everyone is lying. So yeah, the pilot is being cagey about where he learned to fly - not because he's the mole, but because he knows if he lets on that he's a former TIE pilot, everyone will assume he's a mole. The mechanic is cagey about unexplained equipment losses because he owes a ton of money to the Hutts. The Comms officer is cagey about surreptitous messages she's receiving and not relaying to the mission commander because she's spying on the mission commander - for the Rebel command, who are of the "trust no one" mentality. The mission commander is cagey because he has some special side goal to accomplish, and you don't have the clearance to know what that mission is or why he's doing it. Welcome to the Rebel Alliance, friend!
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Mar 16, 2018 22:19
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Paramemetic posted:Neat stuff Ilor posted:The other thing to consider is that at some level, this is a clandestine operation - everyone is trying to present people with as little "need to know" information as possible, so ideally everyone is lying. So yeah, the pilot is being cagey about where he learned to fly - not because he's the mole, but because he knows if he lets on that he's a former TIE pilot, everyone will assume he's a mole. The mechanic is cagey about unexplained equipment losses because he owes a ton of money to the Hutts. The Comms officer is cagey about surreptitous messages she's receiving and not relaying to the mission commander because she's spying on the mission commander - for the Rebel command, who are of the "trust no one" mentality. The mission commander is cagey because he has some special side goal to accomplish, and you don't have the clearance to know what that mission is or why he's doing it. Great advice, thanks a ton! For what it's worth my unofficial motto for this campaign is "What lets the players do cool/interesting things?". So if they decide they actually want nothing to do with the current crop of missions and want to gently caress around in the Outer Rim or something then sure, go ahead. I'll try to enable it so that they can have said cool/interesting things happen there. It's set roughly between A New Hope and TESB so it's not as though they're under a lot of time pressure. I think the other things I'm going to ask about are going to prove there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to GM problems: I'm struggling a little with the overall campaign villain. What I've decided so far is that they're an ex-Separatist commander who's fallen in with the Alliance somehow. At some point early on he's going to betray them to strike out on his own, targeting both the Rebels and the Empire. He's quietly gathering up abandoned Clone Wars era ships, vehicles, weapons, battle droids (modified to deal with the shut down signal), etc. for years to form a huge force in secret. Now, the problem I'm having is three-fold: A) What is this guy's motivation? I already know that he was a fervent believer in the Separatist cause and why he hates the Empire. Aside from everything else that's lovely about it, he sees it as the logical conclusion of the late Republic. He also sees the Clone Wars as unfinished business. But why would he betray the Rebellion? Surely, if he wanted to promote Separatist beliefs it'd be easier to do it peacefully once the galaxy's been saved? It's not much, but one of the campaign's themes is supposed to be revenge. B) How can this guy and his cobbled together army + fleet be a credible threat to the Rebels and Empire? It would be a bit of a let down if the only reason he hasn't been squashed is that the Rebels can't spare the resources yet and the Empire have better things to waste their time on. I've toyed with some sort of CIS back-up plan or half-completed superweapon(s) in the back end of beyond that no-one knew about (after all, Sidious might have orchestrated the Clone Wars but he wasn't omniscient). But even there I can't think of specifics. I'm also afraid that I'm going to unwittingly stumble into making this an example of the GM jerking off about their ~super awesum villain~ who's so cool that they can stand up to two of the major groups in the setting simultaneously, logic be damned. C) How can I make him memorable? I'm concerned that if I'm not careful he's going to turn into a very bland, generic villain. My players have unwittingly thrown me a bone in that two of them have back stories that could easily be exploited (one was alive when the CIS attacked Coruscant and now has a distaste for droids, the other was shipboard security on a warship that got destroyed by an unspecified enemy that caused major loss of life), but that's about it. The other thing I was going to ask about is this: At some point I'd like the party to be infiltrating an enemy warship to achieve some objective, only for it to suddenly get into a major battle. I was thinking that depending on what's happening outside it might affect events inside the ship (compartments depressurising, power failures, you know the drill). Think of the opening part of Revenge of the Sith. I'd like the party to be able to influence what happens (for example, repairing the disabled power system to let them access the turbolifts). However, it feels strange to have the players doing stuff that ends up helping the bad guys, even if it's to improve their own chances of success. And would such a setpiece be enjoyable for the players?
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Mar 16, 2018 23:50
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I've been drinking so my ideas are no longer subject to a filter. This usually has benefits, so here you go:Soup Inspector posted:A) What is this guy's motivation? I already know that he was a fervent believer in the Separatist cause and why he hates the Empire. Aside from everything else that's lovely about it, he sees it as the logical conclusion of the late Republic. He also sees the Clone Wars as unfinished business. But why would he betray the Rebellion? Surely, if he wanted to promote Separatist beliefs it'd be easier to do it peacefully once the galaxy's been saved? It's not much, but one of the campaign's themes is supposed to be revenge. He has some kind of personal motivation. Maybe the Rebellion was responsible for the death of a loved one, or the destruction of a city. As we saw in Rogue One, they weren't exactly pure good from start to finish. A sufficiently personal motivation like that could provide him with the desire to get revenge even if it means indirectly helping what should be a greater enemy. quote:B) How can this guy and his cobbled together army + fleet be a credible threat to the Rebels and Empire? It would be a bit of a let down if the only reason he hasn't been squashed is that the Rebels can't spare the resources yet and the Empire have better things to waste their time on. I've toyed with some sort of CIS back-up plan or half-completed superweapon(s) in the back end of beyond that no-one knew about (after all, Sidious might have orchestrated the Clone Wars but he wasn't omniscient). But even there I can't think of specifics. I'm also afraid that I'm going to unwittingly stumble into making this an example of the GM jerking off about their ~super awesum villain~ who's so cool that they can stand up to two of the major groups in the setting simultaneously, logic be damned. Maybe he acquired something incredibly valuable to both sides. Instead of a superweapon, he has the plans for it. Or he has some deep blackmail on a Moff that Palpatine himself would kill the Moff for if he discovered it. Instead of having him being a huge threat to both sides (because that's basically impossible without a superweapon or extreme Force powers), he's a threat to the local Empire as well as most of the Rebellion. quote:C) How can I make him memorable? I'm concerned that if I'm not careful he's going to turn into a very bland, generic villain. My players have unwittingly thrown me a bone in that two of them have back stories that could easily be exploited (one was alive when the CIS attacked Coruscant and now has a distaste for droids, the other was shipboard security on a warship that got destroyed by an unspecified enemy that caused major loss of life), but that's about it. Memorable villains are realistic villains. He has a human motivation that the PCs may even be able to sympathize with, and the only reason they aren't supporting him is that he's gone too far. Take a look at Killmonger in the Black Panther film. He was such a good villain that even Chadwick Boseman has said that his protagonist is the villain of the film in some ways and Killmonger may even have a bigger following than T'Challa. Michael B. Jordan helps by being very charismatic and attractive, but Killmonger has a motivation that a lot of audience members sympathized with: he wants to aid in the destruction of institutional racism and the uplifting of his race. The problem isn't his goal, but that he goes too far and tries to enact it by giving black people advanced weaponry and encouraging them to conquer the planet in his name. He has to be stopped not because of his goal, but because he's become so extreme that his plan will result in the deaths of countless innocent people to achieve it. The other option is that he really is ridiculously evil but he has so much charisma that you can't help but love him, like Hades in Disney's Hercules or Gareth in Labyrinth. But this relies on you being a very good actor as well as a writer. quote:At some point I'd like the party to be infiltrating an enemy warship to achieve some objective, only for it to suddenly get into a major battle. I was thinking that depending on what's happening outside it might affect events inside the ship (compartments depressurising, power failures, you know the drill). Think of the opening part of Revenge of the Sith. I'd like the party to be able to influence what happens (for example, repairing the disabled power system to let them access the turbolifts). However, it feels strange to have the players doing stuff that ends up helping the bad guys, even if it's to improve their own chances of success. And would such a setpiece be enjoyable for the players? I think it'll work as long as the things that occur make sense. Instead of repairing the entire power system for the ship, maybe they have the opportunity to repair just the local power. You could have an NPC let them know the consequences of an action before they do it so they can decide if the risk is worth it. If you still want the option for them to help the enemy, give them a few choices: 1. Climb the ship through disabled turbolift shafts and stairs, fighting their way one level at a time. 2. Pass an average skill check to repair power to a large section of the ship, which will restore power to that section but also restore power to something like deployable shields or automated turrets that they now need to deal with in return for shortening the encounter. 3. Pass a higher level skill check to restore power to just the turbolifts while blocking power to other systems or redirecting it to random stuff (like refresher sinks or an entertainment system) so they get the advantage without any downsides. Maybe also include a stick with the carrot: if they fail the skill check, they suffer a damaging electric shock or get locked out permanently so they only have one shot.
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Mar 17, 2018 00:09
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Got an idea for something I think would be fun in a 5e campaign set mostly in the Feywild. The idea is there's a rush of prospectors to the fairy plane because word got out about these idiot fairy kings who'll trade gold literally for a song and similar. Long story short, it's not the colonial dreamworld people think and the folks getting most wealthy are the ones selling poo poo to would-be adventurers and kicking them through a mushroom circle woefully unprepared. For my game, which is based in an infinite archipelago, I'm using inkarnate (which I LOVE, and buying the upgraded version is totes worth it for the much larger number of assets) to generate maps of islands, and then printing those out, sticking a magnet to the back, and placing them on a whiteboard as we go. Perhaps something similar? Rough out your prime material map with inkarnate-produced locations stuck to an actual physical board, which can then be swapped out for the alternate versions as they are explored. Having an actual physical map is a lot of fun, imo.
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Mar 17, 2018 00:44
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chitoryu12 posted:Good stuff Yeah, admittedly in retrospect the "major threat to both sides" thing is rather silly and unrealistic. I'm just concerned that as it stands his cobbled together Clone Wars' Greatest Hits (potentially with some upgraded designs thanks to other ex-Separatists) might be underwhelming as a campaign scale threat. It feels like it might lack the little extra oomph needed to get it there and really light a fire under the players' asses to stop this guy, particularly since they're going to be roaming the galaxy rather than being stuck in a single sector. Of course I could always make him the focus of an adventure rather than the campaign, but I'm fond of the concept of a Separatist veteran as a major villain rather than the bad guy of the week. I like the potential motives you gave for why he would betray the Alliance - it'll humanise him quite nicely! Excellent point on the warship event; I like the idea of carrots and sticks as well as warning the party. Maybe I'm a softie but I don't want my party to feel like they weren't given a fair chance to see what was coming.
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Mar 17, 2018 01:19
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Just another general tip I would suggest coming from my dalliance with Apocalypse World is if your goal is "come up with cool things for the party" then come up with cool ideas and put them together but don't commit to them as part of a storyline or plot. While you're brainstorming, think of things like "oh yeah I want them to be on an enemy ship while it's fighting the good guys but they need to help the enemy ship or they'll die" - but don't think "and I want it to happen like this..." Generally in D&D and other TTRPGs there are a few different dispositions for tables, and you want to figure out which one your party likes and go with it. Roughly I would categorize these as: 1) The DM has a story to tell. In this format, you, the DM, have come up with an aaamaaaaazing story that you want your players to play out. This is an extremely risky way to play and absolutely requires you to know your players intimately because it tends to cause the harshest feelings and the biggest problems when the players end up doing something unanticipated and the DM lacks the skill to bring it back around. 2) The DM has a setting to show. This works a lot better in terms of flexibility because the DM is just showing off the cool ideas he or she has come up with. You don't have to be super-prescient about the players but you do have to have a very good familiarity with the setting so that you can come up with exciting poo poo on the fly when the party goes off the rails. You legit don't need the players to do anything in particular but you have to have things ready to drop. Requires more improv or more crazy detailed preparation. 3) The DM wants to find out what happens. This is the Apocalypse World approach - the players and the DM (MC) are both playing to find out what happens. There's no plan, the players have most of the rails, the story is being made collaboratively. This is really hard to do in a d20-like because encounters need to be balanced to the players to be challenging, or the whole premise doesn't work and you should be playing using another system (like PbtA) and not using d20. The advantage you have here is that you're looking at 2, and it's a setting everyone is already really familiar with. Most people can at least list a few set-pieces from Star Wars. So this isn't that hard. What this means, though, is that your prep should be focused on building settings - set pieces and encounters - and not on building stories. The story you want to tell is extremely fragile. Having an intricate plotline that spans 10 sessions and goes through all kinds of political intrigue seems really interesting to the DM and seems like something we naturally want to play, because it's interesting to us and because that's how video games work. But this isn't video games, and nothing will cause hard feelings and awkward moments for the DM faster than having a plotline planned out for 10 sessions that gets derailed session one when the players roll to attack the big bad and kill him before the reveal, or when they decide they hate the quest hook and decline the call. And nothing makes the DM look more like a dick than invalidating player decisions. We can't simultaneously hook our players in with "this is totally open world guys I'm building this world for you!!!" and then protecting pieces. Every NPC, every setting, everything a DM creates must be done so with the assumption that the players are definitely, definitely going to kill it - and if not the players, the DM should be considering it for a plot point. But that's all story stuff. We're not creating stories. In movies or fixed media, the writer gets to make the story. But in TTRPGs, the characters make the stories. When we read a book, the author doesn't go "and then I decided that the hero went to fight the guy..." It's the character's choice, within the fiction. The DM isn't the character - the players are. So the DM should create the setting and see what the players do. But we can't do that with a d20 easily because in some of these systems the math is so tight that the players are always one or two badrolls away from a TPK and that means winging it risky. Worse, the players are building skillsheets with a knowledge of the game's mechanics, so the entire process becomes completely unsatisfying if those mechanics get largely ignored because the fights are being whipped out happenstance and the encounters are always "every roll hits and every hit kills" type things. Characters are defined as much by their limitations as by their abilities, and when there's a big book of mechanics that players are making effort to choose from, it's difficult to balance an encounter well when you're winging it. So, my suggestion is to brainstorm scenes you want to see during your prep period. "This would be a really cool scene to see if it comes up." No specific characters, no specific places, just scenes with challenges and obstacles to overcome. Those can be enemies to fight, puzzles to solve, social encounters, whatever - but just come up with the idea. Then, do the math. Look at the relevant stats your party has, and set your DCs, enemy ACs, and HP, etc all appropriately. Make it in accordance with the principles that your game is designed around. There are a lot of really good examples of how many encounters per rest you should be seeing in D&D literature and I'm sure there's as much for Star Wars stuff. Then, keep those encounters in a folder (or word document, or whatever). Revisit them now and then to adjust the numbers if they aren't used to keep them scaled with the party. Use them when they seem appropriate, but keep these as your "oh, poo poo" encounters and throw them in when it works with the narrative but the party is doing something you didn't expect. Reskin everything to fit. Throw them into a "session" plan when that scene is going to work. Don't be afraid to use them, but always keep some in your pocket and don't write them all into each session. Another big huge piece of advice I would give is that you should always always always be planning one session ahead. "But you just said don't plan the story!" That's true. What I mean is, at the end of each session, your characters should know what they are doing the next day. Do not end sessions with "okay, you get back to base and you wait for your next assignment." Instead, end sessions with "okay, you get back to base and the boss is waiting for you with this..." So for example, let's use what you've mentioned so far: session 1, you flubbed the math and they moonwalked the shuttle. No big deal because they went and recon'd the base. End of session, they're outside the base. You now know exactly what they're going to do next session - it's that base. Is that base going to take all session? If not, plan more. Maybe they get some keycodes at the base and have to sneak onto a ship to do something with them. They do that, and let's say that's the end of the session. Before you close the session, drop the next thing. You don't have to have the actual session planned. In fact, you don't want to have the actual session planned. What you want is to know, vaguely, in like, one sentence or less, what the players are going to do. But give them a little bit to plan. Let them ask questions and straight up improv that poo poo - make it up in that very moment based on whatever enters your head, and write it down. So, maybe they have to infiltrate a Hutt Cartel slave market. That's all you know. "How are you guys planning to go about this?" Let them ask questions. "Do we have to go through the front door or is there a back door?" Answer off the cuff. There's a back door but it's heavily guarded. Okay, what kind of slaves? Uh they are all princess leia clones or some poo poo. Whatever. Make it up but write it down. Let them ask just enough questions so that they have some idea what they are going to do and to give you an idea what to write. Don't commit to anything, but get an idea of what the players think you're thinking - then build something close but not quite. Throw some curveballs in there. What you're doing by doing this is making sure that: 1) the players are committed to going somewhere next session. You don't want them spending all week thinking of some zany thing they want to do. Let them be thinking about "oh man a Hutt Cartel slave thing, maybe we should dress Larpo Caldrisulan up like a slave???" This kind of thinking is good, it keeps them playing to find out what happens rather than trying to DM from the player side. 2) you know what you're doing when you're designing the encounters and set pieces. It's so much easier and so much less loathsome to plan sessions when you know what you're doing going in. In my own experience, nothing burns me out faster as a DM than planning sessions with nothing to work with. Giving them the chance to plan, you're letting the players do heavy lifting. And then finally: design big spaces and let them explore them. There's nothing saying that you want every session to be a discrete adventure, and in fact I would discourage that. If every session is a full narrative arc, then they aren't coming to the table wondering what's going to happen next. That means every single session you need to create a narrative hook to pull them into the story. gently caress that, it's exhausting and it causes real problems when players make too-cool-for-school Han Solo characters that could give a gently caress about the Alliance but just want to get paid. That means every single session you have to dangle more credits in their face. gently caress that. You don't have to plan the story 10 sessions in advance (don't do that!) but once you have a good feeling for how fast your party advances through scenes, absolutely start making it so that your set-pieces and adventures are going to take 2-3 sessions where they are committed and don't have to re-engage each time. You're in the Death Star, you don't get to decide to leave, you've got to see it through - no need for a plot hook, and it lets you focus on the encounters. Note that I didn't say plan the entire Death Star - just plan for them not to be finished with the Death Star at the end of the session. Always keep the party excited for what's coming next, but never leave the party not knowing at all what's coming next. At the end of a session, your players should know what they're going to be doing at the beginning of the next session, basically. Okay wow too many words I'm just gonna write a book or something, but yeah you got me thinking about all the things I wish I'd known when I was starting to DM so those are just some of my advices and some of the things that I've never seen a DM guide get into except Apoc World's. Edit: yeah it's just too much post but also two last "things I wish I knew as a kid" bits: Don't be afraid to tell your players what your characters see. If you put it in the game, players will want to interact with it in the way they are used to interacting with things. It is a venerable and time-honored tradition to put unbeatable encounters in games, but it seems unfair if you don't let the players know that. If the giant mech that comes out from behind the warehouse looks like it could gently caress the characters up, the characters know that. They know that because they are fictional people in the fictional world. But they are played by players, and those players are real people in the real world, and don't see what the characters see. You have to give them that information as the DM. So it's 100% fine and kosher to say "a giant loving mech comes out from behind the warehouse and, honestly? You guys don't think you stand a loving chance, this thing could cream you." That doesn't deprive your players of anything, in fact, it gives them information to solve the problem. In this case, it's telling them the nature of the problem, which is not in fact to kill the mech, but to escape. Don't be afraid to use game terms to describe things. It doesn't ruin immersion to do that. It helps inform the players about information that helps their characters act within the fiction. It's okay to say "it looks like it has about 80 hit points" because that means something to the player. If you want to be slightly less gamey, you can relate it to something they know about. "You know your ship? It looks [slightly/a little/way] [more/less] durable than that." But give your players the tools they need to make good decisions in the game. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 02:06
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Soup Inspector posted:Yeah, admittedly in retrospect the "major threat to both sides" thing is rather silly and unrealistic. I'm just concerned that as it stands his cobbled together Clone Wars' Greatest Hits (potentially with some upgraded designs thanks to other ex-Separatists) might be underwhelming as a campaign scale threat. Not if you set the campaign in a remote part of the galaxy where the guy is a big fish in a small pond. Maybe he’s teaming up with the Hutts or the Black Sun to create a sanctuary for pirates, smugglers, slavers, scalawags, ne’er-do-wells, blackguards, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, rear end-kickers, poo poo-kickers and Methodists.
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Mar 17, 2018 02:17
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I draw the line at Methodists, friend. 
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Mar 17, 2018 15:27
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Paramemetic posted:Really good stuff Don't apologise for writing all of that, I genuinely appreciate the reality check and the tips.  The dumb thing is that honestly I should've already understood that I was risking falling into the planning trap since it's brought up in countless GMing advice articles, and I already know that to cover my weakness in thinking on my feet I have a nasty tendency to make contingencies upon contingencies ("If [x] happens, then [y]..."). I suppose I was getting too caught up imagining the players doing Cool Thing X, Y, or Z.The fact that my players are intimately familiar with the setting is both a blessing and a curse. For one thing it means they'll have zero problems coming up with their own plans or understanding why [CHARACTER] is important. They're also very invested in the setting already. On the other hand, it also means that if I get anything glaringly wrong or fudge details too blatantly they might pounce on it. They're not jerks about it, and I've already got a pre-made excuse in the fact that merely by existing the characters are non-canon so getting worked up about canonicity is a tad pointless. But it is a bit intimidating even though I've also got an endless mental database of stupid Star Wars setting details. And for what it's worth FFG's Star Wars system is decidedly on the narrativist, fail forward side of the spectrum from what I can tell, so although combat can be lethal (particularly at lower levels) I think there's less of a "you must get the crunchy stuff 100% right or you'll murder the players/make a completely dull cakewalk" problem than you might get in other systems. The players are also encouraged to come up with details (for example, if they get a certain kind of roll they might describe how their character shoots a pipe that sprays steam in the face of a thug, blinding him temporarily). echopapa posted:Not if you set the campaign in a remote part of the galaxy where the guy is a big fish in a small pond. Maybe he’s teaming up with the Hutts or the Black Sun to create a sanctuary for pirates, smugglers, slavers, scalawags, ne’er-do-wells, blackguards, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, rear end-kickers, poo poo-kickers and Methodists. Good thinking! Really it might make sense for the Hutts or the Black Sun or some other big criminal organisation to get him on side so that they can grow in power and influence. And criminal orgs in Star Wars can get pretty silly powerful too (the Consortium from the second Empire at War game comes to mind - that game's campaign ends with the crime boss protagonist stealing a Super Star Destroyer with a superlaser in the prow and going to town on a pair of Rebel and Imperial fleets). So I might go with a hybrid of your suggestion and Chitoryu's idea of this guy having the plans to some old super weapon or another, leaving anything beyond that to what happens in game. And if the players never go anywhere close to him or express no interest whatsoever? Fine by me, I'll go with the flow and see what they do want to do. Thank you, guys!
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Mar 17, 2018 19:04
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If you're having trouble with thinking on your feet after a few sessions, try this: tell the players before one session "we're trying something new today" and then run a game with zero planning. You know where the PCs are, you have a thing happen, and then everything from then on is up to them. Like, say you have a bounty hunter attack them. Who hired him? Have no idea. If the players decide it must be Local Crime Boss, think about whether Local Crime Boss would do that, and then decide if they're right or if they're mistaken. Have no plan whatsoever. Then, at the end of the game, you say "guys, the new thing we tried today is that I had no plan. I didn't have anything written or statted up, I just came up with everything on the fly. I need to know two things: first, did I do okay? Did you have fun playing this way? Is it something you want to see more of, or did I spend so much time going 'umm okay lemme think' that you were taken out of the game? And second, I want to leave it up to a group vote as to whether the events of today's game 'actually happened' - whether they're canon for our game. If you think I did a lovely job and you'd like to just erase this session, we can do that; if you had a ball and want to run with the stuff we came up with today, we can do that too. Either way, you're getting XP for the session and that isn't getting erased even if we decide It Was All A Dream." From what you're saying, Soup Inspector, you have a tendency to overplan and then lock up when the plan goes awry, so my recommendation is that you try doing the exact opposite a couple of times. Even if "have no plan" turns out not to work for you, the experience of running a game with zero plan will still be useful to you, because it'll give you some valuable Game Improv experience; then the next time you overplan and the game goes off the rails, you'll be able to come up with poo poo on the fly in a hurry - because you did it before. EDIT: to reiterate, though, it's critical that when you try this you talk with your players about it. Make sure they know from the get-go that this isn't the way you usually do things, and make sure they have a chance afterwards to say "nah man that sucked" if it sucked. But if you make it clear that this is a thing you're doing so you can get better at running games so they will enjoy the games you run more, they likely won't have an issue with it.
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Mar 17, 2018 19:14
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One thing I've found that really helps this kind of gameplay is to present players with a problem or a puzzle and have no solution in mind whatsoever. Your players will surprise you with what they come up with and you'll look like a genius when you pick the right time to say "yup, that was it." I had arranged a big weird setpiece fight built to force this party full of fragile ranged dudes to contend with big close-range heavy hitters and some unusual environment interactions that might allow them to play keep-away by pushing these big magic spheres that would raise and lower pillars they were standing on. The hope was they'd take turns exposing themselves to danger pushing the spheres around as necessary while everyone else sits atop the pillars and pounds away at the enemies. And I hosed up. I hosed up *real* bad because they absolutely shredded my enemies without help and were left wondering "what's this weird pillar setup for?" They decided it must be connected to opening the door up the way and coordinated their actions so that these pillars would raise and lower timed against one another like engines on a piston, and I looked like I knew what the hell I was doing when I told them they figured it out.
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Mar 17, 2018 20:15
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