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Samizdata posted:We never had a rape game. (A couple of crossbow weddings though.) I had a chain of combined tavern/brothels in any campaign where I suspect there would be sexual malfeasance. Also, my bouncers don't care WHAT you WERE, but, now you got their attention, you are now chiseled spam. Period. I actually was in a game where the main plot turned entirely around a rape of a princess, but it was done with total tact and the delicate nature of the violation wasn't played up. It was a very good campaign where the intrigue just built and built and I remember it fondly. Since the plot twist was based on the backlash from the event and not the horror of the event itself, I don't have the (almost certainly totally justified in your cases) inherent reaction to immediately draw away from rape as a plot device despite knowing personally two people who were raped.
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May 15, 2018 04:20
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CannonFodder posted:Yeah, D&D isn't a good fit for low-magic games. That's why Conan The Barbarian role playing games exist. 4e: Ranger, Rogue, Fighter, Warlord was a perfectly functional party.
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May 15, 2018 06:44
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chitoryu12 posted:The way GURPS works is that damage is basically penetration, while damage modifiers like the caliber of the bullet or anything like poison on it are applied after damage gets through the armor, cover, or any other DR. If the initial damage roll gets through the DR, reroll the damage and add it on to whatever got through the DR. Or just have weapons that don't have the special bullets do no damage at all/be healed from next round depending on how you want the combats to look, and give the monsters lower to no DR against the magic weapons. e.g. either your 2d6+1 gun gets 5 points past DR, at which point you roll damage again and add it on, or say your Wendigo has DR 0, but just cannot be put down or significantly harmed by weapons that don't have the required coating. You could also have something like the weapon not mattering much, if at all, but you have to know all about the monster before being able to harm it. Making some sort of mystic connection between hunter and prey. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 06:52 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 06:50
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Razorwired posted:4e: Ranger, Rogue, Fighter, Warlord was a perfectly functional party. Only if you use inherent bonuses, but yeah that party would kick a lot of rear end.
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May 15, 2018 06:51
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Razorwired posted:4e: Ranger, Rogue, Fighter, Warlord was a perfectly functional party. the issue is less 'no magicians', when someone says low-magic, they usually mean 'no casters and NO magic items', and the game is heavily skewed towards characters getting enchanted items asap.
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May 15, 2018 13:27
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Kurieg posted:3.0 Psionics were the weird "you need to have a high strength to cast X Psion spells, high Con to cast Y Psion spells, etc.". 3.5 changed Psions to pure int based casters. then Complete Psionics nerfed some of their spells and introduced two new classes, one of which is meh, and the other which might actively be worse than the Warrior class. 3.0 Psionics were a direct extension of 2e psionics, where each discipline corresponded to a different stat, and you cast by making 2e stat checks, so you took all your powers where you had a 14-18 stat and stacked some bonuses and got a 75-95% success rate. Unfortunately, they failed miserably at translating that into 3e mechanics in an actually useful way. The original system also worked super well for Dark Sun's "Everybody is a wild talent" so that even the fighter who had Str/Con and nothing else had powers that were not only worth taking, but actually impressive.
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May 15, 2018 14:30
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dark sun best setting
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May 15, 2018 14:39
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Kaza42 posted:Middle Earth is a weird case for magic, because it is very different from pretty much any game setting (especially D&D). In Middle Earth there is basically no difference between "magic" and "being really good at making/doing stuff". Using Athelas to heal is magic, because the knowledge of how to do so is rare and valuable. Creating magic rings is just being really really good at making rings, "weaving spells" while making stuff is almost always used to mean knowing the material and methods so well that you can achieve magical results. Every elf and hundreds of dwarves and men can use magic, because they are learned in their craft or folk-ways. One Ring is the best Middle Earth game because it actually uses this system, by allowing anyone wise enough to learn the ways use magic while also keeping magic very low key and subtle. D&D's "Vancian" system is extremely bad at stretching to accommodate other ideas of what magic is and how it works, which is illustrated immediately in how they could only model Aragorn (and for that matter, Conan) by giving him a bunch of peculiar discrete spell-like abilities.
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May 15, 2018 16:33
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Yawgmoth posted:Same reason all the other lovely DMs let this poo poo happen: spineless little dweeb continues being spineless little dweeb in the face of any sort of adversity or conflict. It's a tale as old as time. It's probably just failure to deal with the nightmare scenario of having a quarterback player who actually deserves to be the quarterback in terms of play skill but is also an rear end in a top hat about it, which typically goes: Players: decide on plan, start acting on plan GM: stuff goes wrong Quarterback: immediately points out why stuff went wrong and corrects plan, emphasizing how obvious it the flaws were and how terrible the result is going to be GM: has to either run doomed encounter, fudge encounter thus making fudging obvious, or allow retcon and give game to quarterback It's easy to say  but often the quarterback player is also the life of the group.
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May 15, 2018 16:35
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Yeah, but if the quarterback player is the only one having fun, what kind of "life" does that group have? Ergo:
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May 15, 2018 16:38
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I, too, enjoy having a story told to me that I have no meaningful contribution to for several weeks in a row. e: also the only 'skill' that matters in tabletop is the ability to be considerate to your fellow players and gm Leraika fucked around with this message at 16:41 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 16:39
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Leraika posted:I, too, enjoy having a story told to me that I have no meaningful contribution to for several weeks in a row. For a second I thought you were bitching about this thread That one dude sounds like an asshat though
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May 15, 2018 16:43
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Leraika posted:I, too, enjoy having a story told to me that I have no meaningful contribution to for several weeks in a row. This TV thing could be big someday!
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May 15, 2018 17:05
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Ilor posted:Yeah, but if the quarterback player is the only one having fun, what kind of "life" does that group have? Ergo: They're not always as bad as Toby - that was horrific by any standard - but they can easily take over parts of the game, with combat being a common one if it's a tactical system that isn't designed to allow PC independence. The problem is when you kick the quarterback out and end up with a bunch of nervous, quiet players still making elementary mistakes and either getting killed or getting bored at being fudged into not getting killed 
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May 15, 2018 17:08
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Subjunctive posted:This TV thing could be big someday! You know what would make it even better? If one of the actors suddenly breaks character and tells us all about how that didn't really happen and the director is an idiot.
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May 15, 2018 17:40
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hyphz posted:They're not always as bad as Toby - that was horrific by any standard - but they can easily take over parts of the game, with combat being a common one if it's a tactical system that isn't designed to allow PC independence.
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May 15, 2018 20:23
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hyphz posted:They're not always as bad as Toby - that was horrific by any standard - but they can easily take over parts of the game, with combat being a common one if it's a tactical system that isn't designed to allow PC independence. Yeah thing is we were all looking at him with big sad anime eyes basically going "please sir we are babes in the wilderness, lead us please" If he had even Gaston-ed up to the front of the party and gone "ok so here's what we're gonna do, you're gonna target that guy, you climb that tree..." I genuinely think we would've done it quite happily at least for awhile. I just don't get why he wouldn;t let us in on his plan until *after* we'd already tried to take our turns.
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May 15, 2018 20:27
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fuzzy_logic posted:Yeah thing is we were all looking at him with big sad anime eyes basically going "please sir we are babes in the wilderness, lead us please" If he had even Gaston-ed up to the front of the party and gone "ok so here's what we're gonna do, you're gonna target that guy, you climb that tree..." I genuinely think we would've done it quite happily at least for awhile. I just don't get why he wouldn;t let us in on his plan until *after* we'd already tried to take our turns. Because it's his story, and your input is not required. Having a "leader" player can be good, provided everyone involved is working towards group fun. There are plenty of groups that welcome someone giving orders, because not everyone is good at tactics or thinking on the spot. The important thing is that the leader player has to be 100% okay with and encouraging of other players going off-script to do their own thing. The most pushback a leader should give against anyone wanting to do something else is "Did you remember about X thing?" just in case they forget that they're slowed or whatever.
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May 15, 2018 20:35
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Leraika posted:You know what would make it even better? If one of the actors suddenly breaks character and tells us all about how that didn't really happen and the director is an idiot. So Community right before Chevy Chase left?  I disagree with Hyphz point, But instead of getting into an argument and sucking the fun out of this thread I'll just post an update for Omen Academy, a 13th Age Campaign where none of the players know the system well enough to quarterback. For those who haven’t read the last post you can read it here A refresher of the cast: Alberic, Halfling Paladin: The “Paladin” with a stolen divine spark via a prank by the Prince of Shadows. Silver-blue veins run up his right arm, when he smites it flares into full flames of silver fire. Currently floating his status as a Champion of the Audition Hall to hang out in the fancy cocktail lounges the Black uses to train assassins and spies to act like waitstaff and servants. Alberic has played a few campaigns, mostly in 5e. Asteron, Minotaur Barbarian: Stoner Prince of a Minotaur Tribe. His default mode is to wreck poo poo. In non-combat he plays the bull in the china shop. Studying his tribe’s worship of dark gods to become a Cleric/Barb hybrid based on the Dragon Age Reaver. Omen Academy is Asteron’s first RPG ever. Barner, Halfling Rogue: The Ratmaster, or one of two people called The Ratmaster. He’s the one that’s completely ordinary and just knows everything about mundane, ordinary rats. Currently studying tinkering after he stole a Gnomish battle cart in the Audition Hall and wrecked the Compass Knights(Former Audition Hall Champions) with it. Omen Academy is Barner’s first RPG ever. He and Barner are friends. Caerynn(Say-Rin), Dragonborn Ranger: Assassin and Displaced Gold Dragonborn noble. Caerynn is studying a mode of worship the Priestess outlawed in which the faithful are called upon to directly confront the wicked and be the barrier between the light and dark and getting used to the fact that the Green School actually knows how to accommodate a Dragonborn noble. Caerynn’s player has played a few campaigns. When we last left off the party was standing in front of the freight elevator to R&D. In the first five minutes of the game Asteron made several attempts to break the elevator while Asteron tried to brace it by jamming various crates and statues into the doorway. After about three minutes of this I had a minor DM snap and told them that sometimes I just expected them to get into the elevator and push the damned down button. The party climbed down the now open elevator shaft and found the broken car several feet down. Asteron crit failed his Climb check and lost a Recovery, mostly due to the fact that he decided to jump and grab the greased cable instead of taking the clearly marked ladder like everybody else. At the bottom of the shaft they found the wreckage of the elevator car. Barner picked the lock on the access panel and Asteron forced open the broken elevator doors. When they climbed out the first thing they saw was a massive lion head made of spun copper rushing past at a breakneck speed. The lion head then retracted and rammed past again and again. When they carefully stood up the party found themselves in the middle of a giant testing floor. The lion head punched the warped remains of a golem chest plate into a wooden post. Across this trap there was a floor full of large safety equipment. Giant vats of substances Barner recognized as highly acidic swung in an enormous centrifuge. Several golems were beaten into pulps by weights that were raised and dropped every few seconds, forming a minefield of falling iron. Two doors lead off the testing floor, the main exit was blocked by a fallen catwalk, the other door lead into a windowed booth with a large console dominating the space. Barner looked around and found a small access tunnel and disappeared into it. Unfortunately he failed his check and emerged in front of the centrifuge, taking 10 damage as the swinging counterweight smashed into the back of his head, knocking him prone. Asteron ripped the chest plate off the post between lion punches. He also whiffed and found himself expending a turn to find a very warped piece of mundane steel. Alberic disappeared into the access tunnel and jammed Asteron’s useless chestplate into the lion’s clockwork, stopping the trap. Next Caerynn bolted into the operating booth and tried to use the console. After some testing he found himself in the possession of two large floating mechanical hands that could be controlled by the console. He experimented by touching the glowing runes on the console’s surface, His first action is to grab the centrifuge and slow it down so that Barner could escape. Barner charged into the drop weight minefield and looked for anything that would be useful in his Tinkering apprenticeship. With a successful check he found a golem head that was salvageable while avoiding the falling weights. Meanwhile Asteron and Caerynn cleaned up the broken catwalk and allowed the party to move past the door. The exit opened into a long hallway that the party moved down cautiously, Asteron drew his sword and Caerynn dropped 10 paces behind the party. As the party closed the door to the testing area Alberic and Caerynn heard a whisper. Rolling a Wisdom check Alberic caught “---star” and Caerynn heard “Morningstar”. Asteron and Barner looked at them sideways when the two ask if either of them heard the whispers. Once they exited the hallway the path opened up into a large connecting chamber. Two of the doors were reinforced steel with large external locks and warning signs in Imperial Script, which only Caerynn and Alberic could, and not fluently. They caught enough to guess that whatever was locked in the rooms was probably dangerous and opted for the third set of doors, a simple set of polished wooden doors at the end of the central hall. They opened the doors and entered to find an odd mirror that covered most of a wall, There were also two large brass circles in front of the mirror and two small pillars topped with arcane crystals. Besides the console there were rows of shelves holding various books, folios, and recording crystals. Barner and Alberic rolled with their mercenary and thief backgrounds to find relevant files while Caerynn perused the shelf closest to the door. As Asteron approached the console a familiar face appeared. It was an androgynous high elf woman with short, slicked back hair(The Security Hologram from the last session). In that same cheerful voice she announced, quote:Hologram Elf: Unauthorized Access. Please vacate the premises or prepare for processing.” The voice said as the brass circles popped up out of the floor, revealing the “Processors” which for the DMs out there were a pair of reskinned Otyughs with mechanical grabbing claws instead of tentacles and an extractor drill instead of a toothy maw. Initiative was rolled. Suddenly the third hazard was revealed as the half-elf program lit up the crystals on the small pillars. A ghostly blue swordsman appeared, slashed Caerynn across the back, and dissipated. Next Asteron charged the screen because “gently caress this bitch.” to his credit he put a decent chip in the surface with his battleaxe before one of the Processors grabbed him and shoved an Extractor Drill into his back. The second Processor grabbed Barner by one arm and tried to drill him, but the Rogue was able to use his free arm and legs to swing over the drill head. Caerynn put an arrow into the screen and cursed when it healed over, “A regenerating mirror… great.” He said as the round turned over and he took another holographic sword to the back. Asteron broke out of the Processor’s claws enough to put his axe into it. Barner activated his Spectral Armor to become ethereal and escaped his Processor’s claws in order to flank the other one with Asteron. Meanwhile Alberic ran up and took a swing at the holographic projectors. After another round or two of skirmishing the Processors went down, which left the party to mop up the projector and screen. Alberic took special satisfaction in Smiting the console in order to fry the central processor. They laughed in a manner reminiscent of Office Space when I tell them that the Elf Lady can’t bother them anymore. At this point the whispers came back for a second. Alberic distinctly hears “Eveningstar” and Caerynn “Morningstar” before they faded again. They took a Short Rest and sat down to study the files they found. There were enough prototype files and research folios to ensure they got paid for the job. They cross referenced the signs to find two files that they thought matched the doors: Firefly Golem, Prototype Amoeba Golem, Alpha Test Model for Servant Jelly Golem System The party checked the maps and finds that the Firefly Golem was also housed with something called a “Healing Pod” and decided they could use some magical healing as Asteron has been digging deep into his Recoveries. They entered the room, finding a short steel staircase down into a testing chamber littered with half-assembled golems, a squad of what Alberic calls “Legion Golems” and one large metal canister at the end of the hall. Alberic tried to knock one of the dormant golems over and it dropped into a defensive stance. Roll Initiative. Alberic got tied up with one Legion Golem while Caerynn posted up on the catwalk and Asteron/Barner charged towards the opposite row of Golems. They all sprang to life as the canister sparked to life. A floating humanoid mass of lightning emerged from the canister and jumped into Alberic’s golem, supercharging it. Carynn started sniping the supercharged golem and Alberic rained blows on it with his sword. They dropped it pretty quickly only to discovered the Firefly Golem’s second trick. Killing its host body caused an electric explosion. Alberic got staggered by lightning damage as lightning arced across the metal surfaces of the lab and into the Palaiin’s armor. Meanwhile Asteron and Barner beat down one of the regular Legion Golems. They actually do a pretty good job over the next few round of using Alberic to isolate the charged Golem while the other three burned down his partners. Then Asteron ran in and covered Alberic as the final golem blew up. Afterwards Barner recalled a note from the Firefly Golem file and jammed his dagger into the glowing core, absorbing the consciousness and containment field of the golem for transport back to the school. They find the Healing Pods. It takes some cramming to get Asteron into one, the Halflings share another, and Caerynn grabs the third. It grants them a Full Heal Up and they poke around the lab, eventually finding a hidden staircase under the battery the Firefly Golem lived in. Caerynn and Alberic still wanted to get paid, so they opted to read up on the Amoeba Golem. The file referenced a set of syringe spears, which Barner found in the Firefly Golem chamber behind some unused arms. They distributed the spears and opened the door. The Amoeba Lab was dominated by four metal tanks with taps coming out of them at various angles and heights. In the center a large glass tank held a translucent blue fluid with several reddish purple blobs floating inside like the gunk in a lava lamp. When Asteron got to the tank first the fluid rose up and began to ring around the Minotaur. Meanwhile the faucets on the tanks began to spray out more of the fluid, which raised in vaguely humanoid blobs that stood as linked groups. Three of these blobs engulfed Barner and carried him away. For this fight I used an Ochre Jelly and Lemure reskinned as the main body of the golem and the servant blobs respectively. As they found this fight’s special weapon(They missed a similar capacitor glove for the Firefly golem) it would auto kill the servant blobs and on a 16+ it would absorb one of the golem cores and take a chunk of its hit points. In theory this was supposed to give them an edge in the fight. In practice Asteron couldn’t roll over a 8 without raging and Barner was knocked unconscious as the crowd of servant blobs engulfed and drowned him. Alberic and Asteron eventually absorbed all the cores, dissipating the liquid golems and suspending the cores in storage tanks for transport and sale. After pouring a potion down Barner’s throat they took a Short Rest and returned to the hidden stairs. After winding down they saw the worked stone of the testing compound give way to roughly hewn rock and dirt. They entered a sub-basement that was vast, but sparse. Wet black stone was lit by the odd crystal torch. Plain tunnels opened into rooms used for overflow storage and little else. Eventually Alberic stumbled across an enormous pair of iron doors. He opened it while everyone else stood outside. He crept in and saw two figures. One was a medium sized clockwork golem wearing an older style helmet. The other was a huge silver dragon with a pair of giant ice crystals where her wings were supposed to be. The Knight Golem immediately squared up. A long icy blade extended out of his right arm while a plate rotated into a buckler made of spiraling metal plates joined by a layer of ice. quote:Knight Golem: Who goes there? Alberic’s Player: Okay, What the hell is going on? DM(Me): What do you mean? Alberic: What the gently caress is a Silver Flame? Me: Silver fire comes out when you smite. Alberic: When Paladins smite? Me: No, when YOU smite. Alberic:  quote:Orlando(Knight Golem): Impossible. Your spark wouldn’t find this classless little runt worthy. Caerynn tried to hide his bow behind his back as he half walked, half got pushed in front of the golems. quote:Aurorawing: Ah yes, the Archer, the Morningstar. The Golems explain that Aurorawing was using her abilities to cover the area in a perpetual icy fog. Further pressing revealed that she was once a great dragon, the Silver Wyrm in fact. And Orlando was her First Paladin. The party learns that until around 10 years ago there were a few Silver Paladins running around, but they disappeared for some reason and nobody quite knew why. Aurorawing and Orlando reveal that 10 years ago they were imprisoned in these bodies and held under this lab. When they revolted and ran everyone off the lab was largely forgotten. The only reason they had stayed was because Aurorawing couldn’t fit in the stairwell and Orlando couldn’t decipher modern text enough to find a way out in the files. At this point everyone but Caerynn ran upstairs to find a way to get the golems out. While they ran Aurorawing revealed that something was coming, but she wasn’t sure what. Using the Message Stones Barner stole in Session One Caerynn told the party to hurry. Thanks to the fact that they intentionally broke everything to make sure the security woman couldn’t come back the party entered a “timed” skill check. I basically started an Escalation Die and brought the mystery invader close every round they failed to find an escape route. In the files Barner found an employee manual that revealed a hidden freight elevator from the sub basement. Coordinating with Caerynn they put Aurorawing on a platform sitting between 4 pillars. The control room group tried to break into the control system and eventually succeeded when they found an admin password written in the margins of the employee manual. The elevator ran up the center of the entire compound. The party boarded as it crawled past the Research Floor’s central chamber and rode it to the lobby. As they exited they saw a figure break the treeline several yards away from the glass wall of the lobby. It was a human, wielding a twisted black bow, and wearing what looked to be a cloak of giant black aloe vera leaves. Caerynn sized the guy up and saw a set of bone white arrows in his quiver that made his blood run colder than usual. While he was staring Aurorawing explained that she felt that the Ranger had some sort of Dragonslayer weapon. After/during some frantic debate and strategizing Barner snuck outside and circled behind the Ranger. Meanwhile the rest of the team bolted down the windows and tried to taunt him into the open. Barner got the drop on the Ranger and hit him with a Thief’s Strike, pulling half of the arrows out of his quiver and kidney punching him. Barner realized immediately that something was off when instead of groaning in pain the Ranger just turned and smiled with sickly gray lips as a dark shadow lashed at Barner for 6 damage before Initiative was rolled. Barner actually won Initiative and used Thief’s Strike again, snatching the rest of the arrows and taking another reflective hit for attacking the Ranger in melee. His player was  for about two seconds before the Ranger took his turn. He pulled the bow and shot Barner with an arrow of coalesced shadow, instantly knocking him out. At this point Asteron freaked and charged out while Caerynn started firing from range. Alberic held his ground in the lobby in case the Ranger had another trick weapon.It turns out he did. The Ranger undid the weird cloak and it twisted out into two Hungry Stars that flew at Alberic just as Asteron caught up with the Ranger. They start trading blows as the Stars try to break past Alberic and Orlando. The Halfling and Golem Paladins actually held the line for a few turns until the Hungry Stars knocked Orlando out with a Warp Pulse. They dogpiled on Alberic as Caerynn tried to line up a shot on the Ranger from Aurorawing’s head. The Ranger, meanwhile, is rocking Asteron’s poo poo. Barner went down too fast to figure out what the bow was actually doing. Every time the Ranger hit the target was Dazed until they took a quick action to tear the shadows away from their face, at which point they would take ongoing damage. Asteron was staggered within two rounds and he got maybe one hit off due to the -4 to Attack rolls. Suddenly Barner rolled a 20 on his death saving throw(he does this once a dungeon.) He considers attacking the Ranger again but opts instead to book it back to the building. While he ran Caerynn finally got a hit on the Ranger and realized that the reflective shadow damage didn’t trigger on a ranged hit. Barner and Alberic finish the Stars while Asteron takes the Ranger’s head off. After a Short Rest Aurorawing explains that the arrows are tailored to kill her kind. Out of game terms I explain that they autocrit dragonkin and a dragonkin hit by one of them needs a Full Heal up to recover their hit points. She also explains that the Crusader isn’t the only one that will be looking into the facility, naming the Elf Queen, Arch Mage, and Emperor as people that specifically want her gone. The party decides to rendezvous with their handlers and run back to the Academy. Before they can get too far Alberic realizes something is up, the trees don’t look quite right. A quick scan of the treeline reveals that they’re almost all the same tree. Barner scouts a few feet ahead and notices the trail funnels the trails into a nice little ambush point. The party opts to move around the grove of fake trees to avoid an unnecessary fight(It was a bunch of Pixies dropped there by the Elf Queen, they’re still after the party). They report back to Brad and Chad, who agree to sneak back to Horizon Academy(and give fake names to the Bounty Office to throw any pursuers off) The party runs to the beach to get back to the boat and Clim the Halfling Fisherman. As they’re launching the longboat a quad of Half-Orcs break the trees. Asteron jumps out of the boat and runs back to fight them while everyone else attempts to shoot/throw javelins at the Orcs as the boat takes off. Asteron immediately Rages and double whiffs. The Half Orc Berserker also whiffs. At this point the party learns why you don’t send a Berserker after a Berserker. Not because it’s particularly dangerous, but because it’s stupid. Asteron and the Berserker meet on the sand, Asteron stakes his axe in the sand and punches the Half-Orc, yelling “gently caress You!” at which point the Half-Orc buries HIS axe in the sand and yells, “No, gently caress You!” before kicking Asteron in the thigh. The rest of the party pelts the remaining Half-Orcs with arrows and javelins as two of them form a shield wall and advance. Alberic Smites one and keeps swinging at the others. Meanwhile back at the Duel of the Dims Asteron and the Berserker have begun open hand slapping each other in the chest and swearing in their respective languages(neither of us could roll over a 7). I sent one of the Sword and Shield wielding Legionnaires after Asteron and he rolled a 3, which we interpreted as him catching the Stupid and just throwing his helmet at Asteron’s gut. Caerynn all of a sudden gets a shot off at the remaining Legionanaire and puts an arrow in his eye. Asteron gets a crit, at which point he yells, “Ah gently caress it!”, grabs the Half-Orc Berserker by the waist, and suplexes him headfirst into the sand, breaking his neck. At this point the party boarded the boat, sailed home, and levelled up. Next time they go to Drakkenhall to put the Silver Wyrm back into her normal body and deal with the fact that they may have started a proper war with the Empire. Also they get  weapons and armor made out of the white dragon they killed.
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May 15, 2018 22:33
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hyphz posted:They're not always as bad as Toby - that was horrific by any standard - but they can easily take over parts of the game, with combat being a common one if it's a tactical system that isn't designed to allow PC independence. It's less malicious than Toby, but can still be similarly alienating for the other players who haven't been moonlighting in the crab fishing industry for the last five years.
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May 16, 2018 14:50
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I accidentally opened a door for my players, 4/5 of whom are research chemists, to go off the rails to determine what ‘alchemy’ an NPC was doing to create her fortune. Had to steer pretty hard/handwave a bunch to keep them from making the game miserable for me and their other buddy. Gave them a few physically impossible chemical names via other NPCs to end the technical speculation and prevent in-game industrial scale-up. But boy it was a nerve wracking few minutes when I realized what I had put in front of them.
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May 16, 2018 15:10
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BadSamaritan posted:I accidentally opened a door for my players, 4/5 of whom are research chemists, to go off the rails to determine what ‘alchemy’ an NPC was doing to create her fortune. Had to steer pretty hard/handwave a bunch to keep them from making the game miserable for me and their other buddy. Gave them a few physically impossible chemical names via other NPCs to end the technical speculation and prevent in-game industrial scale-up.
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May 16, 2018 15:15
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My players killed an evil noble and forged a will in his name, leaving his estate in the capable hands of his long-lost heir (i.e. one of the party members), so I thought it would be funny if the noble's extended family decided to sue them over the claim in a Phoenix Wright-style court case battle. Turned out one of my players had a law degree.
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May 16, 2018 15:21
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Bad Seafood posted:My players killed an evil noble and forged a will in his name, leaving his estate in the capable hands of his long-lost heir (i.e. one of the party members), so I thought it would be funny if the noble's extended family decided to sue them over the claim in a Phoenix Wright-style court case battle. A well-fought out courtroom scene can be just as intense as a fight against a dragon. And this sounds like what I believe my DM has in store for my PC with regards to the "abandoned" barony.
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May 16, 2018 15:59
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I don't disagree, the problem was more that nobody else at the table had any real background in it; hence the whole one-man show dilemma. I don't blame the player, he didn't mean to sideline anyone, but I could feel the other players slipping away while he took charge of the preparatory legal proceedings. Eventually he put out the suggestion to settle out of court, and I was so swamped by all the jargon and regulations myself (dude prepared an actual multi-page court statement between sessions) I decided to have the noble family accept his terms cause there was no way I was gonna be able to put up a fight against any of this. So the party won the inheritance, which was only a small subsection of the family's larger assets anyway, but never got to have their cool legal battle. In retrospect I should've just told him "Law works differently here," but I hadn't expected anyone to go that far in the first place. Hindsight's 20/20, I suppose.
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May 16, 2018 16:23
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Honestly that's probably how it would have worked out in real life too e: ooh, good call splicer. V i'ma keep that one in my pocket in case ppl try to get into legal shenanigans in my game. Ignite Memories fucked around with this message at 17:05 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 16:29
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Bad Seafood posted:I don't disagree, the problem was more that nobody else at the table had any real background in it; hence the whole one-man show dilemma. I don't blame the player, he didn't mean to sideline anyone, but I could feel the other players slipping away while he took charge of the preparatory legal proceedings.
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May 16, 2018 16:55
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Bad Seafood posted:I don't disagree, the problem was more that nobody else at the table had any real background in it; hence the whole one-man show dilemma.
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May 16, 2018 17:05
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I like how Legend of the Five Rings handles the law. Evidence beyond "guy is dead" is not considered, and Samurai are always assumed to be telling the truth. If two Samurai contradict each other, they duel and the winner is the honest one. Keeps things very simple, and you don't have to know much law to react to every case with "sword"
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May 16, 2018 18:42
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BadSamaritan posted:I accidentally opened a door for my players, 4/5 of whom are research chemists, to go off the rails to determine what ‘alchemy’ an NPC was doing to create her fortune. Had to steer pretty hard/handwave a bunch to keep them from making the game miserable for me and their other buddy. Gave them a few physically impossible chemical names via other NPCs to end the technical speculation and prevent in-game industrial scale-up. In the flip side, my group is full of chefs and foodies, with food derails turning into side quests or being integrated into the main quest, as one of the characters was a rogue whose cover story was being my characters personal chef. One of our earlier sessions went off the rails into a "we will hunt, harvest, and cook the PERFECT meal for this cool guy" session. Saffron was a party staple ever since.
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May 16, 2018 18:53
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Kaza42 posted:I like how Legend of the Five Rings handles the law. Evidence beyond "guy is dead" is not considered, and Samurai are always assumed to be telling the truth. If two Samurai contradict each other, they duel and the winner is the honest one. Keeps things very simple, and you don't have to know much law to react to every case with "sword" Isn't there a Family within a Clan (Dragon?) whose specialty is investigation, detective skills, and forensics, and every other Samurai family looks at them at the weird ones?
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May 16, 2018 18:57
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CobiWann posted:Isn't there a Family within a Clan (Dragon?) whose specialty is investigation, detective skills, and forensics, and every other Samurai family looks at them at the weird ones? The Kitsuki Investigators, yes. While their understanding of forensics is understandably limited, they do things like "look at all the evidence" and "consider that maybe the samurai are lying", and the best ones even do things like "consider how and why pieces of evidence got where they are, and whether it might have been planted". They are considered scandalous, but fortunately there's another dragon family (the Mirumoto) who are one of the most prominent dueling schools in Rokugan and are willing to back the oddball Kitsuki.
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May 16, 2018 19:50
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It's bad to just post about D&D Theory in the Experiences thread, so as penance I will post the story about Luke's Mutants & Masterminds campaign. After one member of our group wrapped up his D&D 4e adventure, Luke decided to run a M&M game set in a corner of the Marvel Universe. (We were free to use existing characters, but we knew that we wouldn't be playing the Avengers, or living in NYC.) Eddie played Korangar (it's Ragnarok spelled backwards!), a Gaea-empowered Flying Brick who was also a super-scientist. I believe his powers came from a magic belt, purely to save on points. Jeff played Rachel Summers, the psychic mutant daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey. I think he later switched to playing a speedster mutant of his own creation. My friend Joe played Wee Hughie, from The Boys, transplanted into the Marvel universe. Now, Joe is a writer. In his own words, "writers take tours through other people's lives." So when crazy poo poo was going on, his reaction was usually "Well that's weird" without really protesting. I played the Blazing Skull, an obscure WWII-era character that pops up from time to time, with super-strength and regeneration powers. Luke told us that he was going for a "Silver Age" game. This meant something different to him than it did to me. To me that meant that he expected us to act like heroes, and the villains would act like villains, and there wouldn't be any edgy subject matter or gory violence. What it apparently meant to him is that a lot of the NPCs would be downright ridiculous in spite of the weird moral ambiguity that weaved its way through the plot. The background for the campaign was simply that we had heard about some weird inexplicable stuff going on in the city, and came together from miles around to investigate. The Blazing Skull's origin story was that of a journalist, so I immediately started digging into archives and found...nothing. This would be an ongoing problem. The other big ongoing problem was Eddie. He played Korangar as an evil D&D PC, which became clear on our first big mission, when we discovered a large underground base. After taking out the HYDRA-like mooks defending it, he proposed that we take their laser guns and sell them. "To whom? And why?" I said. "We're superheroes, and you want to sell guns out of the back of a truck?" He just shrugged. To be blunt, Eddie was a bitter, vindictive person, which came out in every character he played. This was tolerable in D&D, a big problem in other games, and downright intolerable when he GMed. Yet another problem was the way combat was handled. I had the power of Immortality; I could even survive having my head cut off. But that power is really expensive, so I only had enough points to buy Immortality that would take a minute to regenerate. Growing another head in a minute is a pretty cool superpower, but that's 10 rounds--longer than most combats last in M&M. I was at a loss to stop the other PCs (namely Korangar) from being careless about catching me in their blast radius or even using me as a human projectile, because I couldn't be killed. Although Luke had said he wanted a "Silver Age" campaign, he insisted on interpreting the effects of powers as realistically as possible. When a super-strong character literally dropped a building on someone, Luke quickly calculated the weight of 4 stories of bricks so he could determine the damage. Because of the way Super-Strength works in M&M 2e, it doesn't immediately make you better at striking, but makes you an incredibly powerful grappler. When I grappled a heavily armed villain and bear-hugged him to knock him unconscious, Luke ruled that his grenades went off, blasting us both into chili con carne. Your typical Silver Age comic book brawl. It's been a few years, so I've forgotten the exact sequence of events, along with many details. The overall "plot" in this city is that it's controlled by two supervillains who basically just want to stay in control and keep everything the same. One of them has the power to duplicate himself, and of his dozens of dupes, only one is the "main" one. And he can transfer that status from one dupe to another at will. So the only way to deal with him would be to figure out which is the Main Dupe and like, kill that one with a sniper rifle or something. The other supervillain has the power to mess with the memories of everyone in the city. So while a bunch of supers are running around doing stuff, he's constantly covering up everything they do, and using his minions to bring the hammer down on anyone who gets too troublesome. This is why any attempt to actually do legwork on the opposition came to nothing. And like I said, we were also never allowed to roll social skills to detect lying or anything like that, so we always felt like we were in one of those campaigns where you're supposed to figure out the one answer the GM has predetermined, which is obvious to him but bewildering to the players. Here are some of the other NPCs we encountered: The "villain" at the center of that base was Death Nellie, an elderly female super-scientist in power armour. She took her name from the fact that she lived in a giant, room-sized bell buried under the ground. I believe it was some kind of alien artifact, and she used it because it had the handy effect of blocking any detection or communication. But here's the thing: she greeted us as warmly as was reasonable under the circumstances, and didn't have any villainous plan to gloat about. So after a long conversation in which she revealed nothing (and no social skill rolls could detect any sort of deception) we just left. A senile old man whose power is the ability to negate superpowers. I almost killed myself by walking up to him--because one of my powers is immortality, see, and I'm over 90 years old. Luke ruled that I might die of old age if he turned off my powers. A villain named Baseball who was a minion for the real movers and shakers. His super power is that he is extremely heavy, and super-strong enough to carry his own weight around. I think he also carried a glue-gun for some reason. An armed militia group that was just anti-supers in general and wanted to maintain the status quo. The most interesting was a guy whose "power" is that he's living in an alternate reality where he's a platformer video game protagonist. He can jump really high and survive falling any distance, heal himself by eating some fruit that he found, and when he walks into a retail store he disappears into a pocket dimension where a SHOP sells things like ropes and boomerangs. And if he dies, he just reappears having lost his stuff. A neat idea, but like a lot of these other NPCs, he was just sort of cute and harmless and not really a hero or a villain, and there was nothing for us to do there but say "Huh, how weird" and move on. We came to the conclusion that since one main villain was virtually unstoppable, and the other could effectively rewrite history, and they were basically just maintaining a status quo, there was nothing for us to do but just leave town and be superheroes somewhere else. That was the end of this mini-campaign.
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May 16, 2018 19:56
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CobiWann posted:Isn't there a Family within a Clan (Dragon?) whose specialty is investigation, detective skills, and forensics, and every other Samurai family looks at them at the weird ones? I hate L5R's legal "system" because the game's default sets you up as some kind of cop and then the setting makes it so trying to be a cop of any sort is impossible. Kill every samurai except dragon and crab. Mantis can stay too I guess. Agasha can be the new Phoenix clan if they prove they didn't catch the stupids off the others.
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May 16, 2018 20:13
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Yawgmoth posted:Yeah, there's a family in the Dragon clan, the Kitsuki, who do things like "gather evidence" and "use their loving brain. ever" and everyone else looks at them cockeyed for not taking every samurai on their word. The game sets you up so it's easier to be a corrupt cop working outside the law (even if you're on the side of punishing criminals rather than taking bribes) than anything else, and so that the job of being a cop is more about politics and martial supremacy than investigation. If you want to be playing a police procedural, there are WAY better systems. There are better systems for most things, in fact, but L5R's legal system, in fluff, is working exactly as intended.
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May 16, 2018 20:22
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Halloween Jack posted:Why? Just, why? As someone who really, really loves supers games, I think a little piece of my soul dies whenever I hear about one that's truly awful. Not even "so awful it's funny," those can be fun to read/think about, but the ones that just seem pointless and frustration like yours did. Though I do have to say that I quite like the name Death Nellie, even if the concept behind the name could use some work.
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May 16, 2018 20:33
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Falstaff posted:As someone who really, really loves supers games, I think a little piece of my soul dies whenever I hear about one that's truly awful. Not even "so awful it's funny," those can be fun to read/think about, but the ones that just seem pointless and frustration like yours did. I started a Mutants and Masterminds campaign two weeks ago, and it's off to a much better start. The Heroes: Valkyrie - A literal Valkyrie, sent forward in time by Odin to stop some horrible calamity. Unfortunately, her memory was damaged in the process and so she can't exactly remember what the calamity is, only that it's supposed to happen in Midlight City Ruby Runner - Despite the name, she is a lightning-control hero with no superspeed. Many-Man - Despite the name, he is a teleporting wizard with no duplication powers. Poxlom - A detective armed with magic swords that grant power over fire and ice The first session sees them team up to investigate a break in at the New Gaia Factory, a Clearly Not Shady factory/lab that works on genetic modification. The night crew all vanished, the power has been cut and there's blood suggesting a struggle. They track the blood to some earth-elemental type minions wandering the lower levels, and quickly discover how effective AoE attacks are against minions, destroying them all. Probing further, they come to a secret Top Security Room at the bottom of the labs, with walls and doors that even many-man's magic can't see through. It's not immune to "pissed off valkyrie hits it with a hammer" though, and inside they find The Green Man, a nature villain holding the surviving night crew hostage and trying to find something that has been moved or stolen from the room. The Green Man is a giant brawler made of vines and plants, with a control over nature that allows him to infect his enemies with spores while pummeling any who resist. He makes a speech about the evils of this place, and they fight. And he proceeds to horribly wiff every important roll while the heroes completely resist everything he does. The fight lasts three turns, with The Green Man inflicting literally 0 damage and coming across as a giant chump. He gets knocked out and turns back into his human form, perfect to be arrested and thrown into Totally Secure Prison. And then the players show their D&D roots. Valkyrie steals the door, which Many-Man makes invisible. They leave and talk to the police, lead by Sergeant Adams of the Powered Crimes Investigations department. She tries to interrogate them on what happened, while they are trying to conceal the fact that they are stealing a giant invisible door, leading to more or less the following exchange Adams: Alright, I'm clearly not able or willing to arrest you but I'd like some answers here. Valkyrie: Plant monster attacked the place Adams: Christ, what are the damages? Gaiacorp's lawyers are going to be knocking down my door over this Ruby: Door? What door? Many-Man: Oh, there was a door in there. Entire thing blew up, no trace left. Valkyrie: Yes. Now I will be right back. flies away with the invisible door, while the cop is losing patience, then flies back Valkyrie: I was just putting away my weapons Adams: Sure, whatever. Do you have a contact number or anything? Valkyrie: Gives the address of a Scandinavian mountain Ruby: Oooor here's my phone number Adams: Right, okay, that will be all please don't blow up anything else EDIT: One of the players is an artist, and she's been drawing the heroes:  Ruby Runner Vaklyrie
Kaza42 fucked around with this message at 21:17 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 21:09
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NinjaDebugger posted:The game sets you up so it's easier to be a corrupt cop working outside the law (even if you're on the side of punishing criminals rather than taking bribes) than anything else, and so that the job of being a cop is more about politics and martial supremacy than investigation. If you want to be playing a police procedural, there are WAY better systems. There are better systems for most things, in fact, but L5R's legal system, in fluff, is working exactly as intended. If you want your game to be about being Samurai Punisher, you really can't put in a bunch of systems that kick you in the balls every time you do a Samurai Punisher thing. Similarly, your game really shouldn't reward incompetency because then you're making the players think "how can we ignore this plot as quickly as possible?" which is exactly what the systems end up doing. It's one of those things that can, technically, be fixed but only after you waste dozens of game-hours on trying to make it work as written.
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May 16, 2018 21:15
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Someone post a graph of the l5r probability distributions
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May 16, 2018 21:17
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| # ? May 21, 2024 18:45 |
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NinjaDebugger posted:The game sets you up so it's easier to be a corrupt cop working outside the law (even if you're on the side of punishing criminals rather than taking bribes) than anything else, and so that the job of being a cop is more about politics and martial supremacy than investigation. If you want to be playing a police procedural, there are WAY better systems. There are better systems for most things, in fact, but L5R's legal system, in fluff, is working exactly as intended. I played a Tamori Shugenja who got so frustrated with a particular quagmire that she took to just pretending to get shitfaced and started meticulously violating social norms to take everyone's eye off of the Scorpion duelist. Her blundering was partially excusable because being drunk is a legitimate excuse to be an rear end in a top hat (for samurai), and both Dragon and shugenja are regarded as off-beat on their own let alone in combination; we figured out who the main baddie was, but it didn't matter because we also pissed off the magistrate to the point where he wouldn't listen until it was too late. Also I got a reputation for being a drunkard, and the common folk loved me. Reclaimer fucked around with this message at 21:23 on May 16, 2018 |
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May 16, 2018 21:21
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