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Yeah, the best compromise I've found for myself between my desire to plan and not over planning has been just making a bunch of set pieces and areas and just dropping them in as needed. None of the players know what belongs where, so if you have a neat temple dungeon just drop it wherever you end up going to a dungeon and then filling in the details as makes sense. Just avoid tying too much of any given mechanic or detail to being specifically X in location Y. It also helps when combined with getting details from your players because then you can make whatever your set piece is about some backstory detail when appropriate, and they can be all "woah how did you have all this planned?"
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May 30, 2018 02:25
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What are some good places to recruit players for a game on roll20 outside of SA? I considered /tg due to the sheer volume of people there but something makes me think most of the players would be edgy assholes.
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May 30, 2018 02:26
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Oh yeah some people have already hit it on the last page but  DO NOT START IN A TAVERN WITH RANDOM PLOTS. It will only lead to the game equivalent of lovely oatmeal.I believe it's best practice to sit down with everyone and spend a day or an hour on character gen. Ask them how they know each other and what their whole steez is, because that will write a story for you. Example from my own table: Group A sat down from day 1 with me as I asked them "where is your village, what is it's name, what is it known for, and what do you all do there?" They immediately came up with relevant characters that knew or at least knew of each other, and then when I introduced the conflict the stakes were personal and they acted like an actual team. They also all had the same expectation of being desperate partisan fighters trying to save their town. Group B showed up with wildly disparate character sheets and expectations after I gave them a brief overview of the world. I had to spend an annoyingly railroady first session kludging them together, and to this day they still kind of mostly cooperate in spite of themselves. For a while they were musicians, then mercenaries, then they almost killed each other. It was an error on my end to not hammer this poo poo out early. Glukeose fucked around with this message at 02:51 on May 30, 2018 |
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May 30, 2018 02:49
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Learn from the old stories, in medias res is really good
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May 30, 2018 02:57
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Elderbean posted:What are some good places to recruit players for a game on roll20 outside of SA? I considered /tg due to the sheer volume of people there but something makes me think most of the players would be edgy assholes. Mmmmaybe the penny arcade forums? I haven't spent that long there ever but it's always seemed like a more chilled out version of sa. Certainly better than gitp or rpg.net.
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May 30, 2018 06:37
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I'm asking more out of curiosity and sort of as a thought exercise, but are there any systems out there that would work well in a group chat type deal like in Whatsapp or iMessage, almost like a simplified play-by-post/email? I imagine it would ideally be diceless and have very few stats to keep track of, to start.
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May 30, 2018 06:50
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I'm gonna start a game with the PCs' favourite tavern burning down. Motivation established check, broad PC characteristics established check, lampshade hung check.
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May 30, 2018 07:50
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God that's so good it hurts.
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May 30, 2018 08:03
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Either establish a group motivation or ask the players at the outset to go with the flow and adjust motivations as you go. Letting them write whatever they want and hoping they'll go with your plot never works out. edit: unless you don't have a central plot in which case just let the players dictate where they want the story to go.
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May 30, 2018 08:24
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My Lovely Horse posted:I'm gonna start a game with the PCs' favourite tavern burning down. Motivation established check, broad PC characteristics established check, lampshade hung check. gently caress. Yes. Stealing that for my next generic D&D-alike game. Ask them to make the mechanical characters they want but not come up with backstory or relationships, with the hook "You were all going to meet at your pub, but it's on fire and this time it's not your fault". Session 0 is trying to put the fire out (+ rescue the staff, catch the shadowy figure, etc) while doing flashback questions/roleplay about their lives up to this point.
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May 30, 2018 09:04
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Elderbean posted:What are some good places to recruit players for a game on roll20 outside of SA? I considered /tg due to the sheer volume of people there but something makes me think most of the players would be edgy assholes. If you're really gonna just ask internet randos for a Roll20 game, then why not just use the function on Roll20 that already exists for that purpose? 
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May 30, 2018 11:04
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I don’t really see the difference between “your favorite tavern burned down, what do you do?” and “you’re back at a tavern you got kicked out of last week, what happened?”, but I’ll defer to other people’s experience. And my attempt at adding characters n poo poo wasn’t to dangle hooks, it was to add anything at all that might be interesting, but that should probably be up to the players instead. I’ll go with the “establish characters and relationships, then do in media res with something they all care about” method, that seems more reliable.
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May 30, 2018 11:56
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“Your favorite tavern is burning down”- gives the players something immediate that they need to figure out/work towards, and staying at the tavern all night dithering over what to do isn’t an option. “Last week you got kicked out of the tavern you’re now in, what happened?”- This has much less immediate action associated with it. A player might be able to give a character detail or contribute a plot hook (although they could provide a less easily fruitful thing like ‘lol I got too drunk’), but you’re much more likely to have things happen with the first prompt. A first session can be very boring if players are struggling to find a good hook and appropriate motivation- placing one front and center will generally work better, while pulling characters into the past instead of the present stalls out the action you’re trying to start.
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May 30, 2018 13:27
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So: - Get to the action as quickly as possible - Avoid situations where the players can sit around indefinitely - Avoid jumping around in timeframe - Figure out a hook and motivation from the players as they create their characters This all makes sense for a long-running campaign, but what if I’m looking to run a one-shot? I want to get stuff accomplished and satisfied within (ideally) one session, which given how long sessions tend to run, I’d be concerned about keeping people on track and not meandering too much, hence why I tried to come up with something ahead of time. Should I not be doing that?
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May 30, 2018 13:45
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With a one shot you start it old school in the first room of the dungeon. Drop them right into doing encounters and stuff. If someone tries to no-sell the encounter(This thread or the NEXT thread had a post about a Warlock spending an entire 1 shot trying to call the police) remind them that this character will likely never get used again and that there isn't time in a one-shot for you to follow them around the woods until they stumble on a quest. My other advice for One-Shots is to play Follow or Hollowpoint or something. They're designed to build a story and complete it from ground zero within 4 hours or so. Character creation happens in play and you're focused on delivering one story within a game. It took me forever to get my players into other games. But a few key absences and you can get a table with "Well, Larry's Paladin is kind of important to this arc... you guys wanna one shot instead?"
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May 30, 2018 15:02
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Well, I decided to run a Dungeon World oneshot since I wasn’t sure if people would be interested in a long running campaign, but maybe DW wasn’t a good choice for that? I might simply run it as the first session of any other DW campaign and continue it if people are interested anyway.
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May 30, 2018 15:04
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Once again shilling for a system I enjoy, Shadow of the Demon Lord has a central conceit that one game = one level for the party. Therefore all of the published adventures are designed to be entirely self contained. Even if you kept the same characters you could have an unspecified amount of time between adventures as you follow these weirdos through their careers. The system is definitely like DnD's weird older cousin who's really into metal though, so it isn't for everybody.
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May 30, 2018 15:13
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Geektox posted:I'm asking more out of curiosity and sort of as a thought exercise, but are there any systems out there that would work well in a group chat type deal like in Whatsapp or iMessage, almost like a simplified play-by-post/email? I imagine it would ideally be diceless and have very few stats to keep track of, to start. I’ve always been interested in this idea despite the fact that my group would never sustain such a campaign. I think google hangouts would work just fine. I’m a little concerned that using a message service would increase the chance of everyone posting at once which reduces the built in prep time the GM gets in pbp. BadSamaritan posted:“Your favorite tavern is burning down”- gives the players something immediate that they need to figure out/work towards, and staying at the tavern all night dithering over what to do isn’t an option. I’m starting to think the PCs might have a problem with alcohol.
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May 30, 2018 15:57
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Pollyanna posted:Well, I decided to run a Dungeon World oneshot since I wasn’t sure if people would be interested in a long running campaign, but maybe DW wasn’t a good choice for that? I might simply run it as the first session of any other DW campaign and continue it if people are interested anyway. DW is perfect for one shots. Just take the "Don't start them in the loving inn." advice doubly serious because DW is structured around the "To do it, do it" rule. If the system needs the player to declare they're doing cool poo poo to force a roll it's hard to encourage that in a setting where humans are mostly conditioned to ask for drink specials and not stare too long at the cute waiter.
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May 30, 2018 17:01
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Alright, so the idea is to come up with a starting situation in media res based on the questions you ask of the players during character creation, letting the players fill out the details as you go. Ask your players about their characters’ backgrounds, their motivations, and why they’re adventuring together, and hammer that all out before you actually make any moves or roll any dice. I think I can do that.
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May 30, 2018 22:46
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It's time again to plan out a catering game - i'm not quite as strapped for ideas this time, but since you guys were so great at this a couple weeks ago I decided to ask anyways. The requested theme ingredient is Phoenix - I think i'm going to start in media res as they ascend the last peak before making it to the lair of the phoenix, where they can have a thematic combat encounter. Then they get to bring the phoenix back home and cook it. (i haven't got a specific dish in mind, but maybe I should?) Anyway, what they're cooking doesn't even really matter the first time because the phoenix emerges fully formed during the cooking process and they have to fight it again in the kitchen. After that, once they've slain the phoenix again and stuffed it into some pie or whatever, they get to bring it across town. Of course, the phoenix emerges fully formed during the delivery, so they then have to fight it in a busy intersection and keep it from burning too much of the town down. They then have to figure out how to re-cook and plate this phoenix while they're on route to the destination. Anyway, all of this is set up for a very uncomfortable scene where they deliver the food and they're desperately trying to get paid and leave before the phoenix emerges fully formed. I wanna gently caress with them as hard as possible during this point, like say they've delivered this dish to a paper-and-wood japanese shrine, and now the guy insists that they sit down for tea while he reads to them from his priceless library of scrolls. I don't actually want them to have to fight the phoenix more than 3 times, I just think it would be really fun to put them in this ticking-time-bomb situation and see how uncomfortable I can make them. Anyone have more twists on this, ideas for phoenix fights or ideas for keeping them in this place while they sweat bullets? What's your take? Ignite Memories fucked around with this message at 22:54 on May 30, 2018 |
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May 30, 2018 22:51
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Razorwired posted:DW is perfect for one shots. Just take the "Don't start them in the loving inn." advice doubly serious because DW is structured around the "To do it, do it" rule. If the system needs the player to declare they're doing cool poo poo to force a roll it's hard to encourage that in a setting where humans are mostly conditioned to ask for drink specials and not stare too long at the cute waiter. "You are drinking at your favorite pub and having a great time.* Suddenly there's a massive crash and the door splinters inwards. Six huge angry looking dudes loom through the doorway, each holding a felling axe. The biggest of them bellows "Which one of you motherfuckers is <PC's name>?" What do you do?" *Insert one personality question per PC.
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May 30, 2018 22:53
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Elderbean posted:What are some good places to recruit players for a game on roll20 outside of SA? I considered /tg due to the sheer volume of people there but something makes me think most of the players would be edgy assholes. For the most part this depends on what you're trying to run. Lots of systems have decent communities here and there with recruitment type forums attached enworld has most of the D&Dalikes covered, giant in the playground's forums are probably good for that too tho I haven't been there in a long while. reddit has a big shadowrun community, and their edge of the empire discord has a whole looking for group/players bot.
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May 30, 2018 23:12
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Ignite Memories posted:Anyone have more twists on this, ideas for phoenix fights or ideas for keeping them in this place while they sweat bullets? What's your take? Once they're inside the shrine, there's a very long queue to see the monk they're supposed to be delivering the phoenix to. It's full of people with deep and important spiritual questions for him (like 'Is my wife cheating on me?'), and the party can cut in by solving these losers' problems for them. The people directly in front of them insist on paying the admission fee in pennies. The monk who's handling admissions is old and frail and keeps losing count. Then when they arrive, he has to very carefully and slowly fill out their paperwork to let them in, and fetches pen and ink to write a receipt for the delivery. He's using traditional ink stones that have to be ground down and mixed. Also the monastery is being re-thatched. To help the new roof be more waterproof, it's been tarred as well. Also all the monks are practicing a form of meditation which involves dousing their bodies in highly flammable sacred oils. Also they've just taken a delivery of priceless ice sculptures from the Snow Elves to the east as part of the peace negotiations. They're being stored next to the alchemists' fire exhibit.
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May 30, 2018 23:15
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Ignite Memories posted:Phoenix plot I don't know just yet, but if your group ever played Final Fantasy 6, then you really need to figure out how to make one of the Phoenix feathers (ie a phoenix down) kill something mechanical.
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May 30, 2018 23:19
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Hey friend is working on a game in 5e, anyone know of a good program for making encounters to share? Guy js planning on pbp and trying to help them out by looking for programs to allow for making a combat scene quickly. E: He's planning on using Roll20 atm which I recall being a pain to work with.
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May 31, 2018 00:06
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Making interesting, engaging encounters is far and away the hardest part of DMing 5e for me. I'd go as far as to call it my primary frustration with the system - I'm happy to do prep-work but I'd rather do more interesting prep-work than that. This encounter builder is widely recommended. I don't think it's amazing or anything but it's something. Overall I just don't find the MM monsters to be very mechanically interested, way too many things are just "bag of stats with claw, claw, bite". It's weird, player health goes up consistently but player damage doesn't, relying on weird non-linear things that make fights go faster. I don't have great advice, but for the mechanical part, here's the best tool I've found: https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder
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May 31, 2018 00:12
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Sorry by encounters i meant maps fpr encounters to take place in as a visual method for people. Not actual monsters but he'll like that as well.
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May 31, 2018 00:13
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Glukeose posted:The system is definitely like DnD's weird older cousin who's really into metal though, so it isn't for everybody. I used to occasionally talk, in the abstract, about how it would be nice if there were a game that were trying to accomplish the same things that D&D 3.5 was trying to accomplish, but were actually good at it, and how that differed from (and was much more interesting to me) than shifting the focus to narrative gaming. Then I found SotDL and it's like "oh hey, that game actually exists!"
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May 31, 2018 00:16
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Whybird posted:Once they're inside the shrine, there's a very long queue to see the monk they're supposed to be delivering the phoenix to. It's full of people with deep and important spiritual questions for him (like 'Is my wife cheating on me?'), and the party can cut in by solving these losers' problems for them. This right here is genius, presenting an obstacle that the players can overcome through clever play that should also lead to some excellent RP opportunities. Use this, Ignite Memories. Use this and then make sure to tell us how it went. (seriously, by this point the PCs should have a rough idea of the 'countdown' for phoenix rebirths, so you can abstract a 'ticking clock' scenario. "Guys, you figure it will take ten Arbitrary Time Units before the phoenix rebirths, and at this rate there are 15 ATUs worth of petitioners in front of you. If you can help at least 6 petitioners in the next 9 ATUs you'll get in in time. Each dice roll or power usage or whatever-it-is-in-this-system takes one ATU. Go!")
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May 31, 2018 02:52
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:This right here is genius, presenting an obstacle that the players can overcome through clever play that should also lead to some excellent RP opportunities. Use this, Ignite Memories. Use this and then make sure to tell us how it went. Maybe draw a bunch of different pictures of the boiled phoenix egg that they're cooking at various stages of hatchedness, and each time they delay, swap the picture in front of them out for the next in the series.
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May 31, 2018 07:54
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If the party gets split up, should you switch between them on any particular trigger, or just when it feels like it’s been long enough?
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May 31, 2018 14:17
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When it feels like it's been long enough, when there's a good opportunity to create dramatic tension, when what the other group is about to do might become a factor, or just when you need some time to mull over something the current group does.
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May 31, 2018 15:24
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I really like that idea, and if anyone else has ideas for deep concerns these supplicants might have I'd love to make a bit of a list. Here's a few I thought of: Is there life after death? Why were we put on this planet? Does God exist? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around, who owns the lumber? Is it wrong to covet my neighbor's wife if she's sending out a lot of signals? What is the sound of one hand clapping? Ignite Memories fucked around with this message at 18:07 on May 31, 2018 |
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May 31, 2018 17:44
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Ignite Memories posted:What is the sound of one hand clapping? Please make this one the PCs get to see or hear answered by the monk slapping the petitioner across the face as hard as he possibly can. There's a tremendous SMACK and then the petitioner comes out with a big handprint on their cheek and if the party asks what they asked, "I wanted to finally know the sound of one hand clapping."
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May 31, 2018 18:07
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I'm gonna save that one for near the end - My hope is that I can get them to the point where they're rushing through these philosophical issues and one of the players would just slap him in the face themselves.
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May 31, 2018 18:11
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I love hearing about this campaign anyway, as my back project is working on my orcish grocers campaign that i will run one day and has a lot of overlap with what you're doing.
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May 31, 2018 18:14
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm gonna save that one for near the end - My hope is that I can get them to the point where they're rushing through these philosophical issues and one of the players would just slap him in the face themselves. As a "failure state," if the Phoenix revives in the middle of the temple have the monks smile happily, shoo the petitioners out, pay the group and then shove them out the door and loudly barricade it with no further explanation (or noises) except for a parting koan. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 18:38 on May 31, 2018 |
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May 31, 2018 18:26
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Ignite Memories posted:I really like that idea, and if anyone else has ideas for deep concerns these supplicants might have I'd love to make a bit of a list. Is there a S'ant-a Cla'us (fantasy spelling) If a carriage travelling at 35 kloats per chengu leaves the great city of Qkaw at midbell, and another carriage travelling at 15 kloats per chengu leaves the thorp of Plauf at the same time, where do they meet? Where did I leave my keys? Why do fools fall in love? How is babby formed?
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Jun 1, 2018 01:47
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I'm gonna play Chuubo's, anybody got any GM or player tips for that one? Sorry if I totally missed a dedicated Chuubo thread because I'm blind and stupid.
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