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Ilor posted:Good. Play to find out. I did. It was the best session I've ever run and everything amazing that could have happened did.
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 05:22 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 14:24 |
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 10:14 |
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Share! Share!
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 14:16 |
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 14:33 |
I'm closing in on being ready to debut my Crimson Skies 1955 game, but I still need to create a list of soldiers for hire. Does anyone have good ideas for generic soldiers that reflect the states they were hired in? Not specific characters like you're getting heroes in League of Legends, but more like the units an RTS would have where all of the nations have their own units with quirks. Like for the Neo-Confederates you can hire from the Dissatisfied Sharecroppers, State Militia, and Old Army Vet. They all have different starting stats to reflect their level of skill on missions and may have unique traits like New England soldiers being adapted to extreme cold. I definitely know West California is going to have a unit that's just out-of-work wannabe actors.
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 15:34 |
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Use the MGS naming scheme of [Adjective] [Animal].
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 16:30 |
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I'm at work, when I get home I'll do a write up
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 17:56 |
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Appalachia needs Hillbilly Sappers. Or really just Hillbilly [noun].
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 18:30 |
Dameius posted:Appalachia needs Hillbilly Sappers. Or really just Hillbilly [noun]. Yeah, I was thinking about including some old moonshiners trying to get into the mercenary business. So far the vague system I have is that just about every nation has one cheap and crappy soldier (which may have other advantages or disadvantages, like Southern ex-sharecroppers suffer 1 fewer Morale penalty due to their lifestyle of harsh living but the New Orleans smugglers may randomly steal equipment to make up for their low pay), one average soldier, one good soldier, and any number of area-appropriate specialists like sailors, tankers, pilots, and divers. They also come with different starting weapons so you may pick soldiers who aren't as good of an option because of better free weapons. Certain soldiers also may result in random encounters being added to the roleplay, like the average soldier for the Sunshine State is a deserter who stole his service rifle. He's a decent starter and comes with a select-fire battle rifle that would ordinarily be pretty expensive, but the military may come looking for him...
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# ? Jun 21, 2018 15:36 |
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Here's an interesting challenge to wrap your head around; We're doing a campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting, where the players will start off in the Fugue Plane, albeit briefly. I've got a couple combat encounters lined up for their short stay there (foil a demon raid on the Wall of the Faithless, stop a devil from convincing souls to go to the nine hells with him, etc) but I'd like to have some kind of skill challenge. I'm having trouble coming up with something for that though, given the place is described as bland at best, doesn't really have any remarkable features, and doesn't really function like a normal city. It'll be fine the way I have it set up, but it just feels a little combat-heavy for an intro session.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 06:47 |
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Due to a job with a second shift schedule, I haven't had reliable time with anyone in my regular group for about a year. I just got a new job, though, so I'm getting back on the horse with a new game. Still, a bunch of my players have little kids, long commutes home from work, or live far away, so I'm running the game online. I've had success running Pathfinder, D&D5e, and Edge of the Empire on Roll20, but I'm thinking something different this time. Because I'm going to be running something much less tactical than D&D, I figured Roll20 might be overkill. I was thinking of running the game just over Google Hangouts, but I want to think aloud here to see if that's a good idea. 7th Sea, the game I'm running, is more narrative than tactical, so I won't need a top-down grid 99% of the time. I'm just thinking about other stuff that Roll20 brings to the table, and if it's worth using for this game: Pro: I'm able to "whisper" to individual players in Roll20's chat, if I need to hand out secret info to one player. GH can't do this, but I can do the same thing using regular text messages. Doing that is only slightly more annoying than using Roll20. Pro: Roll20 has built-in die rollers and other tools. I trust all of these players to roll on their own at home and accurately report results, so I don't need a die roller app, but it is still kind of handy. Pro: Roll20 does have map support, if I decide I need it. I can easily draw and share static maps on Google's screen share, but tactical stuff will be much easier on Roll20. 7th Sea doesn't care much about that kind of stuff, though, as much as it cares about flavor and back-end decisions you make with dice and abilities. Specifically where you are on a battlefield matters less than it does in a game of D&D. Con: A couple of my players have been having a hard time using Roll20. One of them doesn't have a proper computer and uses his phone to pipe in. Another has a netbook which apparently hates Roll20. They're willing to slog through it, but I think using GH might be a lot easier on them. Con: Roll20 would be one more thing to have running during game, since their voice chat is terrible and we'd have to use GH alongside it anyway. I may be missing some pros and cons, so if there's anything I should be considering let me know. Otherwise, my choice is about dealing with the nuisance of Roll20 for the sake of some of its bells and whistles, or just trimming the fat and running the game using GH for voice and screen sharing. Thoughts?
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 14:35 |
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Railing Kill posted:Due to a job with a second shift schedule, I haven't had reliable time with anyone in my regular group for about a year. I just got a new job, though, so I'm getting back on the horse with a new game. Still, a bunch of my players have little kids, long commutes home from work, or live far away, so I'm running the game online. I've had success running Pathfinder, D&D5e, and Edge of the Empire on Roll20, but I'm thinking something different this time. Because I'm going to be running something much less tactical than D&D, I figured Roll20 might be overkill. I was thinking of running the game just over Google Hangouts, but I want to think aloud here to see if that's a good idea. 7th Sea, the game I'm running, is more narrative than tactical, so I won't need a top-down grid 99% of the time. I'm just thinking about other stuff that Roll20 brings to the table, and if it's worth using for this game: Discord, maybe? It's got screen sharing with sound now and you can import a dice roller. Probably your best choice if you don't need a grid 100% of the time.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 14:53 |
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Discord, my dude. I had the same problems with running Dungeon World and the only thing I’ll miss is mapping support, which in Dungeon World you really only need to coordinate in the world map and players don’t have to keep dungeon maps in mind.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 14:57 |
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I don't think discord supports more than two video people in a video call though - you'll still need hangouts if you want everyone to see everyone else. I think discord + google hangouts would be good though that's rough for phone-guy.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 15:28 |
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Yeah, true
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 15:33 |
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Been playing on Discord with tabletop simulator for like two years now with no complaints. Better than roll20 in my opinion but takes more setup if you're trying to get all elaborate. Mostly I just png maps then import them onto the board though. 2ez
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 15:40 |
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Frush posted:Here's an interesting challenge to wrap your head around; What level are they? If they're tough enough to mess with some big boys you could have them help undo/uncover some sort of plot with agents of the Far Realm stealing souls/messing with the cycle for reasons of their own. Maybe someone who really shouldn't be there got trapped in the Wall through comic fuckery and they have it in their best interest to let a rid get through and snatch said soul in the confusion, sort of like pulling a bank heist when you have stooges or parallel actors making trouble somewhere else. I never read the books or really did anything with the setting so this is based off me looking at a wiki page.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 17:57 |
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sleepy.eyes posted:What level are they? If they're tough enough to mess with some big boys you could have them help undo/uncover some sort of plot with agents of the Far Realm stealing souls/messing with the cycle for reasons of their own. Actually that's pretty much already the plan. They're pretty low level, but I can figure various ways to account for that. For various fluff reasons powerful forces from the Far Realm have managed to damage the tablets of fate, so they're going to do plane-hopping through the outer planes getting the pieces back. Its not too hard to put together combat encounters, especially since in most cases I can just throw various aberrations in. I'm certainly open to ideas about various planar encounters, it's more difficult to think of appropriate skill challenges or puzzles and things.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 20:00 |
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Is there a way to play music through Discord? My group is cool with just voice chat and not video chat, but I'm about to start running my first online campaign and I gotta have my soundtrack.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 20:42 |
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Harrow posted:Is there a way to play music through Discord? My group is cool with just voice chat and not video chat, but I'm about to start running my first online campaign and I gotta have my soundtrack. There are bots that you can invite to your server that will play the audio of youtube videos. That's what we use. You could also link a spotify playlist but everybody has to listen independently.
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 20:56 |
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Phi230 posted:There are bots that you can invite to your server that will play the audio of youtube videos. That's what we use. You could also link a spotify playlist but everybody has to listen independently. Oh, really? I'd just been linking YT videos directly in Discord like a filthy peasant. Are there any particularly good ones? And in case anyone was wondering, I took everyone's advice to heart (particularly Paramemetic's) and my players had a fantastic time - very tellingly, multiple players (including the one who'd been considering leaving!) said that although they only had to roll once or twice during the entire session, it didn't matter since they were having fun. The highlight (or at least the funniest part) was probably when one of the party took the wind out of the sails of an antagonist by theorising that he was trying to recover the plot important doohickey because it contained all of his porn and told him not to worry, they wouldn't get him into trouble. The cherry on top is that they managed to dupe him into taking something completely worthless (or so they think) and thereby achieved all of their goals. So yeah, consider it yet another a ringing endorsement of this thread!
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# ? Jun 26, 2018 22:13 |
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I'm a fan of https://rythmbot.co/ as it lets you build playlists and loop the music.
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# ? Jun 27, 2018 01:28 |
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Crosspost from the 5e thread: I'm running Curse of Strahd for my friends, first time DMing in a long time and first time DMing 5e. I did the tarokka reading with them last session and while they're not the worst I don't love the results: The Tome, Holy Symbol and Strahds Enemy are all in Krezk. The Tome is in the pool in Krezk, the Symbol is in the Abbey of St Markovia and the Ally is Ezmeralda who the book says should meet them at the Abbey if she is the one chosen. Ezmeralda I can probably just move elsewhere like to Van Richten's tower or Berez or something, but I wish the other two things weren't both in the same city. The sword is in a crypt in Ravenloft and Strahd is in his own crypt so I'm cool with those. I had been debating whether to stack the deck for weeks before we did the drawing and I kind of wish I had. At least everything isn't in Ravenloft. If you got this draw, would you change anything? The good thing is that they've just gotten to Vallaki and have had a poo poo ton of plot hooks dumped on them by asking around so I don't have to worry just yet what they will be doing. Also is there a template to apply to creatures to make them undead in 5e? I don't want to throw wolves at the party all the time so I was thinking about undead elk or something to mix it up.
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# ? Jun 28, 2018 17:36 |
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If you want something to be somewhere else, move it somewhere else. Even if you've already told them what the meanings of the cards is and where they should go as a result, you can "serialize" that: they get to the Abbey and thugs recently stole the Symbol, or they got to the pool and it was recently run dry and taken somewhere, or so on. I have been a player once on a CoS table and it was a lot of fun, but I know that there is a ton in the book that I missed out on, it really needs replayed a few times to experience everything. Also, unlike the other pre-written modules, it is really well written. So there's absolutely zero shame or harm in doing a twist like that. Never ever let a pre-written book supersede your judgment as the DM in providing fun for your players. You didn't stack the deck and you got an experience that you think will be less fun. Your players don't have all the information you do. They will just play it out and to them it will be what it is and they will think that's how it is and will not know "oh, there might have been a more fun option if we went to [a place we don't know about actually because it's not relevant]." So it's your responsibility, if you think they are missing out, to make sure they're not. You're not a slave to the book, you're smarter than the book, you know your table better than the book, so my suggestion is to use the book, the encounter math, all that stuff, but feel free to plug in other bits or change things up. Just make sure you keep track of that in case of later references. Also, remember that Ravenloft / the Demiplane of Dread is ruled by the Dark Powers, so if the Tarokka reading wasn't perfect and poo poo comes up that makes it more complicated / a comedy of errors that is like 100% thematic.
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# ? Jun 28, 2018 17:53 |
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Paramemetic posted:If you want something to be somewhere else, move it somewhere else. Even if you've already told them what the meanings of the cards is and where they should go as a result, you can "serialize" that: they get to the Abbey and thugs recently stole the Symbol, or they got to the pool and it was recently run dry and taken somewhere, or so on. Thanks for this, it's funny how obvious it is to just move things or add in complications is but sometimes you need to hear it from someone else for it to click that it's okay.
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# ? Jun 28, 2018 18:14 |
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Okay so, me and another DM are going to be running our friends through dragon heist when it comes out. We are both going to be choosing different "runs" and statting up different characters for each. Because of this I have found out that everyone has decided to run evil characters in my version and good characters in the other DM's version. I am going to have to manage an evil party consisting of: "Sauron, but in the Silmarillion where he's just fallen in with Melkhior. Dragonborn nun who burned down her monastery. Orcish anti-paladin and a tiefling witcher." I know it is going to be a while before the game comes out, but I wondered if integrating aspects of things like Blades in the Dark might make a good fit for the campaign?
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# ? Jun 29, 2018 08:45 |
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Josef bugman posted:Okay so, me and another DM are going to be running our friends through dragon heist when it comes out. We are both going to be choosing different "runs" and statting up different characters for each. You can drop in clocks pretty easily!
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# ? Jun 29, 2018 08:56 |
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Hey, anyone wanna help me spice up the next catering adventure? They really made asses of themselves with the last delivery, and I want to narrate that the company has gotten some bad reviews and lost clients. I'm also finishing painting my skeleton miniatures, so I'm ready to add some undead to the mix. Here's my general plan: Alfredo calls a team meeting to admonish the employees and talk about how business is going slow this week. At a moment of dramatic appropriateness, a letter slides through the mail slot. The letter is simply a map to an ancient keep with the words "WE HUNGER" scrawled upon it. Also, I guess there's like a gold krugerrand or something to imply they have money. So the team would have to find their way to this forgotten keep, which was the site of a famous old-world massacre. There would be spooky spiders and skeletons to fight, and eventually they would come across a massive dining table surrounded by bones. Here they would find some undead that still have the wits to speak, and they would learn about the massacre that took place - two armies met for what was to be a spectacular feast to celebrate their victory over a common foe, and everyone was fatally poisoned. (revenge from another common enemy? distrust of each other? idk) Anyway so now they have unfinished business, and must haunt the land until they eat the spectacular feast that they were promised. The basic hook seems solid enough, but you guys have been real helpful coming up with embellishments and side-missions so far.
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# ? Jun 30, 2018 18:35 |
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Is the poisoner/murderer/whatever still here as undead as well? If so they could try to re-poison the food of the feast with holy water or something that would ruin the meal for the undead guests. Full on game of thrones could have had it be a wedding, necessitating members of the party get married (or faking it, but the fake being real and binding because reasons). Lots of stuff subject to your group dynamic there. Rats and spiders could try to eat the food before the guests can feast on it.
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# ? Jun 30, 2018 19:01 |
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One of the ghosts/skeletons was a renowned chef, and he demands that his one-of-a-kind, brand new (for the time) dish be served at the table. Not a problem, barring the small wrinkle: Either the recipe has been lost to time or One of the ingredients. They'll have to puzzle out the ingredients/dish from the half-remembered scraps from the chef ghost, the records of the library (which, for added convolution, describe what the dish can't be, as they record his previous recipes) and maybe some rumours from other guests who talked with the chef and remember him describing some of it. Maybe a thief looking to steal the recipe for himself.
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# ? Jun 30, 2018 19:25 |
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Torchlighter posted:One of the ghosts/skeletons was a renowned chef, and he demands that his one-of-a-kind, brand new (for the time) dish be served at the table. Not a problem, barring the small wrinkle: Either the recipe has been lost to time or One of the ingredients. They'll have to puzzle out the ingredients/dish from the half-remembered scraps from the chef ghost, the records of the library (which, for added convolution, describe what the dish can't be, as they record his previous recipes) and maybe some rumours from other guests who talked with the chef and remember him describing some of it. Maybe a thief looking to steal the recipe for himself. One of the ghosts/skeletons was a world-renowned chef, and whatever the players try to cook for the undead he keeps on interfering and interjecting with his own ideas and suggestions and making a fuss about these outsiders coming and cooking in his kitchen and doing it all wrong, and eventually he charges whoever has annoyed him the most to a Chef Duel.
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# ? Jun 30, 2018 23:33 |
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Ignite Memories posted:There would be spooky spiders and skeletons to fight, and eventually they would come across a massive dining table surrounded by bones. Here they would find some undead that still have the wits to speak, and they would learn about the massacre that took place - two armies met for what was to be a spectacular feast to celebrate their victory over a common foe, and everyone was fatally poisoned. (revenge from another common enemy? distrust of each other? idk) Food allergy. They brought in a bunch of celebrated chefs to cook for the occasion, and one of them was a dryad who didn't know that nightshade is poisonous to humans and the like. Maybe have her distraught spirit prowling the halls, screaming about how she didn't know, and "BUT THEY EAT POTATOES JUST FINE!"
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# ? Jun 30, 2018 23:42 |
Torchlighter posted:One of the ghosts/skeletons was a renowned chef, and he demands that his one-of-a-kind, brand new (for the time) dish be served at the table. Not a problem, barring the small wrinkle: Either the recipe has been lost to time or One of the ingredients. They'll have to puzzle out the ingredients/dish from the half-remembered scraps from the chef ghost, the records of the library (which, for added convolution, describe what the dish can't be, as they record his previous recipes) and maybe some rumours from other guests who talked with the chef and remember him describing some of it. Maybe a thief looking to steal the recipe for himself. Oh yeah, I know that feeling! Some other issues it can have: * The recipe is available, but written in an archaic dialect from a time when it was assumed that chefs knew what to do so it's missing exact measurements or times and the ingredients have different names. * The version of the recipe you can find that actually has modern instructions is a transcription from a non-expert who didn't understand some of the terms (or thought they were archaic terms for the wrong ingredients) and replaced them, accidentally creating an unpalatable meal. * One of the ingredients went extinct due to overuse, requiring you to figure out what it was like from historical descriptions and find an appropriate alternative. * One of the ingredients has changed, like an alcoholic beverage brand switching to a new proof or recipe or selective breeding making a particular fruit bigger and sweeter than normal, so you need to compensate for the changes or find a way to replicate the original intent.
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# ? Jun 30, 2018 23:55 |
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Ripped recipe WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T SAUTEE THE--
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# ? Jul 1, 2018 00:01 |
The meal was originally poisoned by one of the guests, and they're going to try and do it again, and frame X, where X is anybody from "the caterers" to "every single guest".
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# ? Jul 1, 2018 13:15 |
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Torchlighter posted:One of the ghosts/skeletons was a renowned chef, and he demands that his one-of-a-kind, brand new (for the time) dish be served at the table. Not a problem, barring the small wrinkle: Either the recipe has been lost to time or One of the ingredients. They'll have to puzzle out the ingredients/dish from the half-remembered scraps from the chef ghost, the records of the library (which, for added convolution, describe what the dish can't be, as they record his previous recipes) and maybe some rumours from other guests who talked with the chef and remember him describing some of it. Maybe a thief looking to steal the recipe for himself. Steal from the Technical Challenges on The Great British Bake-Off. The recipe is entirely complete - for people who already know how to make the dish in question. It will have steps like "make the pastry mix" while not in any way describing what the pastry mix's ingredients are or how it's made; "cook the roast until medium-well" without telling you what temperature the roast should be cooked at or how long it will generally take to reach medium well. Basically just assume that the recipe will be made by someone who already knows how to cook, and then give it to people who aren't world-renowned experts and see how badly they can gently caress it up.
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# ? Jul 1, 2018 17:21 |
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If the reason they're taking the job is because their reputation is in the shitter then I'd do it the following way. Let them know that there is a really prestigious cooking competition coming up in a few months but make it clear that at the moment they've got no chance to even place unless they can "somehow" blow everyone away. The reward for pleasing the undead guests would be either a long forgotten recipe that everyone remembers or a small stash of now extinct herbs and spices, which would probably be enough to place them well in the competition.
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# ? Jul 1, 2018 20:54 |
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Ghostly Dietary requirements.
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# ? Jul 1, 2018 21:00 |
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AceClown posted:If the reason they're taking the job is because their reputation is in the shitter then I'd do it the following way.
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# ? Jul 2, 2018 08:46 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 14:24 |
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Give one of the undead a SOYLENT WHITE IS GHOSTS! moment
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# ? Jul 2, 2018 08:55 |