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Keeshhound posted:Ok, realtak, is that not why you guys run heir games? The planning is the fun part. My players love making endless plans. I kind of hate it if only because they sometimes get bent out of shape when they spend a long time away from the table coming up with a plan and I unknowingly wreck it about 10 minutes into the game.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:17
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Keeshhound posted:Ok, realtak, is that not why you guys run heist games? The planning is the fun part.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:35
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I'm really glad you have a game that works at providing the part you enjoy, then.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:46
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I guarantee you any GM will gently caress up your plans as soon as they get a chance. Hell, I would.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:47
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Pollyanna posted:I guarantee you any GM will gently caress up your plans as soon as they get a chance. Hell, I would. I never said I wouldn't? That doesn't make the planning phase an inherently unfun part of the game for either the GM or the players.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:51
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I've in the past had players who absolutely loved the planning stage; they loved meticulously plotting out every detail of a heist. They'd happily spend a whole session on this, the plot would go nowhere, and then their plan would fall apart halfway through anyway (because they don't have perfect knowledge, or they'd focus on the least important thing, or someone at some point would fluff a roll) and like 75% of that planning session would have served no purpose at all. If your players love meticulously planning then by all means do it. Different games for different tables and all. But for me, the fun bit in a heist is when things start going off-script.
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Jul 31, 2018 23:14
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To all you hiest running GMs, is there no place or reward for a well executed plan that pulls the hiest off with no hitches or problems?
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Aug 1, 2018 00:10
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A successful heist tends to be one where nothing interesting happens. The way a good heist narrative works is either things go wrong or the heisters had a cool secret plan B, which doesn't really work with a linear narrative without flashbacks. If the plan works perfectly, the players are effectively saying "And then I do all that stuff". Also since everything in an rpg is managed by random rolls, plans aren't really a major factor.
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Aug 1, 2018 00:14
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OscarDiggs posted:To all you hiest running GMs, is there no place or reward for a well executed plan that pulls the hiest off with no hitches or problems? In a tabletop rpg? No, not really. There needs to be a complication or else you have no story. The reward could come at the end of the well planned heist, you hit the end of it, finish your plan, and then the bad stuff shows up.
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Aug 1, 2018 00:43
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Coming up with cool ways to overcome unexpected obstacles is a big part of the fun of pulling a heist. Coming up with solutions to possible problems ahead of time very likely leads to a bunch of wasted work, in that if players don’t read the GM’s mind they aren’t going to know the interesting problems to attack. Daydreaming is fun, but we game so that our ideas can come in contact with the fiction as it reveals itself. Retrospective planning lets players get that “oh man, what if we” creative high while knowing that the planning they’re doing is going to matter. In my experience it also keeps players pointed in the same direction. Doing speculative planning can easily go off the rails with people trying to anticipate everything in different ways, versus applying their energies collaboratively to a clear and present danger. If you haven’t tried doing a flashback heist (easy enough to whip up in any system I think), I recommend giving it a whirl.
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Aug 1, 2018 00:58
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Gumball Gumption posted:In a tabletop rpg? No, not really. There needs to be a complication or else you have no story. The reward could come at the end of the well planned heist, you hit the end of it, finish your plan, and then the bad stuff shows up. In pretty much any media, really; something always goes wrong (or looks like it went wrong but was actually part of a deeper plan, which is what the flashback system lets you do.) Every story needs some kind of conflict, and heists are no exception. If you're working with a group that really enjoys working up plans, my advice is that you should be there while they plan, taking notes on which parts of the plan they think about the hardest, and then introduce complications in the parts that they weren't as concerned with. Then once they've overcome those complications, reward them by describing how all their more carefully planned contingencies worked well out for them.
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Aug 1, 2018 01:05
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Heist stories are generally about a single heist. Heist games are about multiple so sometimes you should just let the players win. If they beat the rules and it all worked out this time, then let it. The players will feel badass and then 99% of them will enter maximum hubris. It'll go wrong eventually.
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Aug 1, 2018 17:49
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EthanSteele posted:Heist stories are generally about a single heist. Heist games are about multiple so sometimes you should just let the players win. If they beat the rules and it all worked out this time, then let it. The players will feel badass and then 99% of them will enter maximum hubris. It'll go wrong eventually. I think it might just be the one going on in Dragon Heist.
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Aug 1, 2018 18:06
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i think it's necessary for something to go wrong in a heist, but it's worth keeping in mind that "something goes wrong" doesn't have to equal "the players fail something" — it can just be an unexpected complication like: "oh poo poo, we were told there was one guard at this door, but there are actually four!" / "turns out we have one hour less than expected!" / "the item was moved to a different room!" / etc
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Aug 1, 2018 18:44
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The problem is that if you successfully suss out a plan that can go off without a hitch, then playing through the heist itself is just busywork. Blades in the Dark presents one way to resolve this, by jumping in and using flashbacks and the gear system to backfill planning. But a system can probably be devised so that the planning stage becomes the actual play. I don't have all the specifics, but the basic idea I have is somewhat a hybrid of BitD and Microscope. You build a timeline of the plan and contingencies, using available resources, and tallying up points where checks are needed to progress or determine which fork to take. Then at the end of planning, you roll all those checks in sequence, knocking out contingency forks as you pass the decision points for them. If you make it all the way to the end, then congratulations - that narrative planning work is how the heist goes. But if you hit a dead end with no usable contingency fork - whether caused by a failed check or failure to anticipate an obstacle - then you jump into the heist from that moment, with whatever resources remain from that point, and try to improvise your way out. Maybe include a mechanic to get back on track. It would also require a set of heist building rules where the GM is pulling from resources in a similar way, probably also with a pre-built card track, maybe with some ability to inject obstacles mid-stream.
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Aug 1, 2018 19:38
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Polo-Rican posted:i think it's necessary for something to go wrong in a heist, but it's worth keeping in mind that "something goes wrong" doesn't have to equal "the players fail something" — it can just be an unexpected complication like: "oh poo poo, we were told there was one guard at this door, but there are actually four!" / "turns out we have one hour less than expected!" / "the item was moved to a different room!" / etc "A woman pushing a baby stroller suddenly wandered into a hostage situation without knowing what's going on".
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Aug 1, 2018 20:44
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chitoryu12 posted:"A woman pushing a baby stroller suddenly wandered into a hostage situation without knowing what's going on". Or one of the PC's parents.
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Aug 1, 2018 21:06
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One of the PCs' parents displaced from the past... pushing a baby stroller.
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Aug 1, 2018 21:13
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One of my players wants to change classes and I want to make an in-game event out of it, because why not, it gives the session a focus and it's a reason for something interesting to happen. She's a rogue/wizard now and we want to make her into a bard, and I'm trying to think of a story catalyst that brings about You Do Bard Stuff Now. I've got an idea for a bard-like NPC, but I'm not keen on classes as professions, so I'd like to go more interesting than "he teaches you." Storywise, she's a professional thief who stole some magic secrets; her thing in combat is "melee and some spells" and as a bard it will still be "melee and some spells", just a different kind of magic and a more focused package. We're not mucking around with songs and music and "I play my lute at the orc" with this one. She is gonna go big on healing, though. Also this all takes place during a trip to Dwarf Fortress, although I don't see a need to specifically incorporate that.
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Aug 2, 2018 07:04
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My Lovely Horse posted:One of the PCs' parents displaced from the past... pushing a baby stroller. Well in my case my crew are going to be a bunch of people who murdered most of their families. See one of the other guys in the group was DM'ing and wants to take a break and since I DM our Heroquest games I got volunteered. But now everyone has essentially made people who wouldn't be out their in the legion of doom. Current candidates are; Fire Genasi slave salesmen who met a demon prince at a party and got given a horrific amount of power to murder their family. Tiefling Bloodhunter who got possessed by a fiend and butchered her entire village before being calmed down and now has an Angelic patron but more wheel of eyes than man with wings. Dragonborn Monk who set fire to her Monastary and is secretly a confidence trickster trying to scam people (she's sold the same relic 4 times), and a Drow rogue who is in league with a mercenary company.
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Aug 2, 2018 07:56
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My Lovely Horse posted:One of my players wants to change classes and I want to make an in-game event out of it, because why not, it gives the session a focus and it's a reason for something interesting to happen. She's a rogue/wizard now and we want to make her into a bard, and I'm trying to think of a story catalyst that brings about You Do Bard Stuff Now. I've got an idea for a bard-like NPC, but I'm not keen on classes as professions, so I'd like to go more interesting than "he teaches you." She steals a magic talking lute
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Aug 2, 2018 10:05
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She steals the concept of music from the mind of a talking lute.
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Aug 2, 2018 10:42
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Dusk City Outlaws explicitly has a planning and heist set up phase, though the planning element is restricted to a 15 minute timer so it doesn't wind up being the entire game. Then you typically get two day phases and one night phase to lay groundwork your plan needs like finding out obstacles and ways to neutralize them. Depending on the player's activities during those phases, the GM gets a pool of points to introduce complications.
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Aug 2, 2018 11:39
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I've been reading The Sprawl which has a fairly meaty "Legwork phase" before the heist. PC's do stuff and roll to see if they get Intel or gear to help out with the actual heist, but with a high chance that they'll attract attention either from the heist-ee or other parties. So it's kinda up to players on how much they want to do before the heist. Once they are in the heist they can do the blades in the dark swap gear and Intel for whatever fits at the time Seems like a pretty good compromise to me, but then again I (and my players) like planning
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Aug 2, 2018 13:21
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My Lovely Horse posted:One of my players wants to change classes and I want to make an in-game event out of it, because why not, it gives the session a focus and it's a reason for something interesting to happen. She's a rogue/wizard now and we want to make her into a bard, and I'm trying to think of a story catalyst that brings about You Do Bard Stuff Now. I've got an idea for a bard-like NPC, but I'm not keen on classes as professions, so I'd like to go more interesting than "he teaches you." These dwarfs hate magic, perhaps? So there's a booby-trapped something that curses magic users to change into "something else."
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Aug 2, 2018 14:54
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My Lovely Horse posted:Also this all takes place during a trip to Dwarf Fortress, although I don't see a need to specifically incorporate that. You see a Bard Instruction Manual. It menaces with spikes of granite.
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Aug 2, 2018 14:57
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She finds an ancient dwarven tome of indecipherable magic, and after studying it discovers that merely by reading it the magics entombed within it have bestowed upon her an almost supernatural ability to play... The Bagpipes
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Aug 2, 2018 16:09
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The former Rogue/Wizard never gets around to playing an instrument, singing, or anything like that. But they never need to for they are the latest host for an ancient song. The music never ceases, but adapts itself to whatever the current situation is. Imagine the same piece of music as played by a dulcimer during stealth and a bunch of drums during a fight. The words to the song are unknown to any living soul, but liches and other ancients find it infuriating to share a room with the song. When they die the song will be passed on. For it is truly The Song That Never Ends.
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Aug 2, 2018 19:36
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habituallyred posted:The former Rogue/Wizard never gets around to playing an instrument, singing, or anything like that. But they never need to for they are the latest host for an ancient song. The music never ceases, but adapts itself to whatever the current situation is. Imagine the same piece of music as played by a dulcimer during stealth and a bunch of drums during a fight. The words to the song are unknown to any living soul, but liches and other ancients find it infuriating to share a room with the song. Bonus points if you make the Rogue/Wizard start it off without being aware of its effects.
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Aug 2, 2018 19:41
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If you wanna go bard without poncey music themes, it might help to incorporate the abilities as a sort of loremaster / skald / tale-teller. Perhaps she is inspired by the illustrious histories kept by the dwarven mason-historians, and decides to start studying up on the stories of other great warriors and adventurers.
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Aug 2, 2018 19:44
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Or is a propagandist for hire.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:13
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https://i.imgur.com/IdhBCDR.jpg
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Aug 2, 2018 20:58
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For lack of a "how do I be an adult" thread, I'll ask here. There is a long running campaign I run, where I've recruited new people to fill slots for two people that left part way through. I've found the new people not bad, or terrible just... not a fit for me? I just find myself not wanting to run the game at the thought of playing with the newer players, but really wanting to play with the 4 remaining core people that were left over. How best to say exactly all that without being/coming off as a dick? I think they're both quite invested in the game too, which makes it worse. Should I just suck it up?
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Aug 3, 2018 08:49
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Well, is there anything in particular that they’re doing? Is there anything more specific to them not fitting or is it just a general vibe thing? Because it may be something that can be adjusted or it may just be a bad table fit which sucks but can happen.
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Aug 3, 2018 09:06
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Mr. Maltose posted:Well, is there anything in particular that they’re doing? Is there anything more specific to them not fitting or is it just a general vibe thing? Because it may be something that can be adjusted or it may just be a bad table fit which sucks but can happen. A bit of both. There's definitely a different vibe when they're doing their focus scenes, to the point it often is at odds with what the group as a whole is doing. Though again, not massively. The other players have voiced complaints about excessive turn time/deliberation during combat etc. I think for me it's just a general fit, 'cause as I say, they aren't "that guy" or anything silly. Neither of them have done anything highly disruptive.
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Aug 3, 2018 09:17
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Can you elaborate a bit more? Like, with specific examples maybe?
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Aug 3, 2018 12:34
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And do you think talking to them directly about any of these issues would get them to change any of their behaviors?
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Aug 3, 2018 14:42
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Been a bit since I last posted here. The 3rd ed campaign went out with a suitable bang and everyone still enjoys talking about all the B.S and brilliant things that happened over its course. I'm currently working on making a proper campaign music playlist for everyone as a Christmas pressie along with some other goodies. In the meantime, I'm working on the next major arc for my 5th edition game that I run on a different night. One of the planned main antagonists of this arc is a rogue assassin, but she cannot use magic, magic items or have any magic used on her due to a rare genetic defect. Now I want her and any allies she has to be a major threat to the group, but am having trouble figuring out how to do this in an appropriate manner given the group is made up of people who use magic and have a load of magic items as well to boot. Naturally, said antagonist is furthering the plan of someone else who is hiding in the shadows, but for the most part I want the majority of the interactions the group has to be with this rogue and/or her allies.
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Aug 3, 2018 14:44
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Directly, or indirectly? Because it seems like your best bet if you want to directly menace them is mundane traps (bombs) and copious uses of contact poisons sprinkled on poo poo that they're likely to touch, after the assassin is long gone, but those have the problem that if they're used too liberally you'll spend all your time resolving search checks.
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Aug 3, 2018 15:12
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gomababe posted:Now I want her and any allies she has to be a major threat to the group, but am having trouble figuring out how to do this in an appropriate manner given the group is made up of people who use magic and have a load of magic items as well to boot. I used a rakshasa as the main antagonist in my last campaign (they’re immune to low/mid level spells) and I think the key was to make the majority of the face-to-face encounters non-combat. If the antagonist dies, the party loses the only lifeline they have to the greater evil lurking beyond, and they know it. I set up the villain to be in a social position where attacking them directly would quickly get the party in major trouble- in my case, the villain was imitating a prince, but your assassin could have a clear noble benefactor (or an important day job?) that would blow back on the party. It’s important thing is to give the party opportunities to undermine them- disinformation campaigns, messing with alliances, eroding trust/respect for the enemy (foiling assassinations could definitely ruin the rogue’s day in ways the party doesn’t anticipate). It’s a balancing act, since you want the party to feel effective, but you want to make sure to project enough of a threat that they won’t just stab her. She’s presumably a wily person, so make sure she’s smart enough to not get caught alone and vulnerable- society is her best shield, not immunity to magic- so the party will have to turn that against her to make her less of a threat.
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Aug 3, 2018 15:22
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