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Kaysette posted:Sorlock supremacy Easier to be in awe of the holy power of a god when it can also be turned upon you if you err.
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Aug 6, 2018 04:33
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Mendrian posted:Sorry but no. This is the second time someone has brought up Edge of the Empire in an attempt to tear down the idea of rules helping; and suggests those rules are somehow more restrictive. Section Z posted:To try for devils advocate. This mentality could possibly be down to the rear end backwards nature of "No rules to even cover it" vs "Sorry, Edge of the Empire says I HAVE to screw you over for attempting to pick a lock with a credit chip" going too far in the wrong direction? My go to example for the FFG game working well with the players is a combat I GMed inside an enemy base with almost every player in a different building. The players had talked their way inside as people sent from the boss to check up on them (the dice system gave me a lot of tea leaves for this social interaction, including how suspicious various people were of their veracity. I also got to drip feed a bunch of info in exchange for advantages). On landing a leg broke and jammed itself into something important, meaning no quick takeoffs (banked despair from an otherwise stellar repair roll in a previous session). They were given a tour and dropped off various party members at various buildings along the way. When combat broke out one player was in the security hut distracting the guard while having just sabotaged the alarm system (the dice system let me condense a lot of potential results for the sabotage into one roll, and the initiative system led to some nice tactical trade-offs over what was happening in what order), one player was arming slaves with weapons previously taken "for inspection" and releasing them into the compound (the minion system made modeling a dozen ex-slaves with blasters a breeze), two of the players were shooting guys (actual TotM support meant adjudicating a fight spread over an entire compound wasn't a goddamn nightmare of logistics and misunderstandings, and again the minions were a godsend), and one of the players spent the entire time shouting at the boss that their terrible performance in this combat exercise was negatively impacting the audit (politico slowly chipping away at the boss's stamina while dumping her black dice onto all his actions). As for destiny points (bennies), just before the fight kicked off one of the players asked how discrete their comm units were, and if everyone had one. I pointed at the destiny pool and said "you tell me". But the thing that made me fall in love with destiny points and destiny point like mechanics was the round after the politico switched from haranguing the camp supervisor over their shoddy performance to implying that the slavers were mutinying. One of the bad guys started taking potshots at the politico, and she asked if there was a chance of them hitting the supervisor. I had no idea if that was a standard effect, and checking would have messed with the flow of the fight. It was my third ever session GMing the system and I wasn't comfy enough with the rules yet to be majorly mucking with combat lethality, and I was worried if I walked it back as a general option later some of the players might feel like they hadn't won the fight fair and square. So I said if she spent a point to raise the difficulty (a good idea anyway) we'd set "hits an ally" as one of the possible threat/despair results. Was a quick and easy call with minimal expectations of repeatability because destiny point land has a mental association of special circumstances anyway. Dude rolls a complete failure, a bunch of advantages, and a loving despair. Completely misses the politico and crits his own boss. The politico grabs the next initiative slot and says in the creepiest goddamn voice "See? They are unruly" and opens up on the crowd with the flamethrower she'd been carrying around untouched this time. The supervisor finishes off the guy who shot him while rolling enough threats to burn through the last of his stamina, noping him out of the fight due to the combination of a serious headwound and the sudden realisation of what the Hutts were going to do to him. It was an amazing session, and there's a bunch of stuff I didn't cover, including an impromptu chase and hacking scene that merged seamlessly with the ongoing firefight. While the players were obviously the main driving force the point I'm trying to make was that system was helping rather than hindering us every step of the way, and a bunch of times nudged us in directions we wouldn't have considered but fit perfectly or nudged us to add details we'd otherwise not have thought of. That's what I think of when I think of a system facilitating good gaming. And it turned out hitting your own guy is one of the example despair effects anyway. Splicer fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 12:21
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I’m running a 5e game for the first time, the Curse of Strahd, for 3 PC’s. Game is fun, the module is great. That’s my current 5e story.
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Aug 6, 2018 16:10
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Lucas Archer posted:I’m running a 5e game for the first time, the Curse of Strahd, for 3 PC’s. Game is fun, the module is great. That’s my current 5e story. You son of a bitch.
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Aug 6, 2018 17:44
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Reik posted:You son of a bitch. 
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Aug 6, 2018 17:47
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Lucas Archer posted:I’m running a 5e game for the first time, the Curse of Strahd, for 3 PC’s. Game is fun, the module is great. That’s my current 5e story. loving fun haver get the hell out of this thread How do you handle the horror stuff and not feel cheap? In my experience "horror" in tabletop games is basically "some bullshit comes out the walls/ceiling/floor and hits you with surprise advantage and there is no way you could know or prepare for it." And that is actually how it's written. As such whenever somebody talks about a horror campaign I just peace out right away because forced face-checking poo poo just feels cheap and lame, not horrifying.
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Aug 6, 2018 18:03
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Reik posted:You son of a bitch. As you head back towards the forums, the fog and mists grow so thick that you lose track of your posting pals. Even the sounds of gradenko_2000 and AlphaDog are muffled and mangled. The mists seem to take on grotesque shapes. The posts you make echoing back as moans of spectral pain. The tension finally breaks as the mists thin, letting you see your bookmarks again. But something is wrong. The threads are still here, but any fun-having or reasonable discussion are gone. A few wretched posters still cling to the notion that they're playing a good game. A wooden sign rests on the path before you, having fallen off a tree. Next to it is a dead crow, frozen by the frigid air and partially eaten by vermin. In oddly slanted letters, the sign reads: “Welcome to D&D NEXT: Dungeons & Dragons: The Fifth One”
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Aug 6, 2018 18:17
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That's a lot of words for when "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" would have sufficed.
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Aug 6, 2018 18:22
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I'm assuming that's the introduction to Curse of Strahd. If it is, well done 
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Aug 6, 2018 18:28
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It's from "Suits of the Mist" which was the AL intro adventure for the Strahd season.
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Aug 6, 2018 18:31
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Joke went right over my head. Whoops!
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Aug 6, 2018 18:34
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doctor 7 posted:loving fun haver get the hell out of this thread I’m at work so phone posting, but it all comes down to atmosphere for me. Horror is definitely tough to do, but establishing creepiness is far simpler. I’ll post more about it when I get home.
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Aug 6, 2018 18:44
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Lucas Archer posted:I’m running a 5e game for the first time, the Curse of Strahd, for 3 PC’s. Game is fun, the module is great. That’s my current 5e story. Just finished running this yesterday, the whole module ran great start to end.
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Aug 6, 2018 19:05
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doctor 7 posted:loving fun haver get the hell out of this thread lots of perception checks
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Aug 6, 2018 19:38
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Is there a good list of fun magic items anywhere? Googling is making me question people's definitions of fun.
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Aug 6, 2018 19:53
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mormonpartyboat posted:lots of fake checks The classic DM way to terrify your group.
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Aug 6, 2018 19:58
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doctor 7 posted:loving fun haver get the hell out of this thread Note with all your players' Passive Perception + well adjusted DC to spot traps?
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Aug 6, 2018 19:59
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dont rely on jump scares which are bullshit garbage. also use other senses than visual, and give conflicting info to different players, make them doubt their narration gusts of wind seem to buffet the house, but the air remains eerily still. you start to detect a faint whiff of something between sweet and rotten, but if you try to trace it you end up moving in circles. the groaning timbers seem to whisper words just beyond perception, but as one of the gusts hits and slams shutters, you all hear a single word whispered into your ears as if the house itself was right there, presenting a psychic grimace across the decades of tragedy within its walls, saying.... ok, everyone roll perception. anyone over 14 hears 'yancy', and
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Aug 6, 2018 20:07
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Rick posted:Is there a good list of fun magic items anywhere? Googling is making me question people's definitions of fun. http://www.siteofmanything.com/generators/items/random_magic_item_generator.html this generator is kind of fun.
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Aug 6, 2018 20:07
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The way I handle horror is to try to create a sense of inevitability. Make it so that the big bad is something that the PCs clearly can't beat through conventional means, and let them know that time is ticking until it finds them. Every second spent doing anything other than running or figuring out how to kill this thing is a second closer to death.
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Aug 6, 2018 20:44
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mormonpartyboat posted:ok, everyone roll perception. anyone over 14 hears 'yancy', and Ah, is that where he ended up? 
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Aug 6, 2018 20:47
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inthesto posted:The way I handle horror is to try to create a sense of inevitability. Make it so that the big bad is something that the PCs clearly can't beat through conventional means, and let them know that time is ticking until it finds them. Every second spent doing anything other than running or figuring out how to kill this thing is a second closer to death. I like this. "Horror" is real hard to evoke in RPGs. You probably won't make your players feel real horror but you can make an atmosphere they won't forget. Here are just a few tricks: Horror rarely happens after you roll initiative, so it's important that you make some things non combatants. A sack full of fingerbones is weird but you don't have to actually fight it. In fact, combat drains all tension from an encounter so don't try to use it to scare players. Horror is all about tension. Leaving clues about what they're up against. Confrontation relieves tension. Evidence creates tension. In a comedy, the evidence often proves false; horror is a species of drama so you should follow through on your threats. In a horror story, the ultimate evil wants sacrifices, which you hint at over the story, and then it gets one of those sacrifies. Followthrough is what seperates horror from general adventure. Use trappings to build atmosphere but remember that the worst parts of horror will come together in your players' own heads. Maybe a necromancer had a small army of child-skeletons. Use them without comment and let the players stew on it. Show dont tell, but show only a little to say as much as you can.
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Aug 7, 2018 02:38
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Mendrian posted:Horror rarely happens after you roll initiative, so it's important that you make some things non combatants. A sack full of fingerbones is weird but you don't have to actually fight it. In fact, combat drains all tension from an encounter so don't try to use it to scare players. I think thats why i've never seen horror work in D&D, all its mechanics, interactions and consequences resolve around combat as your single point of tension and failure. So you have to run a tone that works to actively avoid the core component of the game. The way to do it is to build a mechanic that is all about tension building, maybe you can rig exhaustion to it? The absolute best way of building a horror game is to go play a couple of games of Dread and figure out what you can co-op from the tension mechanic of a jenga tower. Put together a resource system the players are either depending on or protecting and force them to yank something out of that resource system as things go bad. Maybe a pack of NPCs they are protecting but then you have to do the set up to make your players have an investment in this pool of characters beforehand so its a lot of prep and set up to get it going. kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 02:49
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Yeah, one of the biggest hurdles is one of the core assumptions of D&D is that fights are fair, and horror/thriller stories are not about fair fights (because then they'd just be action stories). From what little I know about Strahd, you can easily adapt it into a horror story without having to fiddle with extra mechanics. Have the group encounter Strahd in the first session, make it very clear that he is literally unbeatable, and show him deciding that he's going to have some sport in hunting these newcomers to Barovia. Now you can start to build tension, knowing that Strahd is always one step away. If one of his hunting dogs finds the party and they don't do anything about it, Strahd is going to show up within the next hour. They have to be careful about who they talk to, because anyone could sell them out in the hopes for mercy from Strahd. A local werewolf clan is dedicated to overthrowing him, but they won't stop looking at the party with hungry eyes. Basically what I'm saying is go look at Innistrad block from Magic: The Gathering and plagiarize as much as you want.
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Aug 7, 2018 03:35
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inthesto posted:Yeah, one of the biggest hurdles is one of the core assumptions of D&D is that fights are fair, and horror/thriller stories are not about fair fights (because then they'd just be action stories). Another real big problem is that D&D really doesnt do 'running away from a fight' very well and it doesn't do much to help transition into a chase or escape scene. Honestly if thats your intro I would lose interest pretty quickly as I'll interpret it as 'he can kill us at any time so nothing we do really matters'. It's tough for me to engage if the opening is getting clowned on by an NPC.
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Aug 7, 2018 04:02
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I'm surprised there aren't chase rules yet. Pretty much everything has them and the game could do with more benefit for being a cavalry guy. It wouldn't be too hard to adapt either. I guess it comes down to being an Ask Your GM how to handle hiding and tracking in a time-based format.
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Aug 7, 2018 04:07
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(strike has chase rules)
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Aug 7, 2018 05:03
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Ignite Memories posted:(strike has chase rules) pretty much everything with a similar level of crunch has them. D&D's an outlier.
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Aug 7, 2018 05:20
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does d&d 5e not have the skill challenges that 4e had? The whole three successes before two failures kind of thing that if I remember right one of the examples they used was a chase scene?
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Aug 7, 2018 05:30
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Wrestlepig posted:I'm surprised there aren't chase rules yet. Pretty much everything has them and the game could do with more benefit for being a cavalry guy. It wouldn't be too hard to adapt either. I guess it comes down to being an Ask Your GM how to handle hiding and tracking in a time-based format. 5E does have chase rules. Page 252 of the DMG. The gist of it is "participants can dash 3 + Con Mod times without penalty, any further and make a con save to prevent exhaustion. You can also attack instead of dashing. Chase ends either when one person stops, the quarry escapes, or it caught." I don't know if these are particularly good rules since I'm still fairly green and haven't really done chases yet.
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Aug 7, 2018 05:33
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Trojan Kaiju posted:5E does have chase rules. Page 252 of the DMG. The gist of it is "participants can dash 3 + Con Mod times without penalty, any further and make a con save to prevent exhaustion. You can also attack instead of dashing. Chase ends either when one person stops, the quarry escapes, or it caught." that's not bad. It could do with some wiggle room for stealth but it's about as functional as every other set of chase rules. If anyone has ever used them, let me know if they're any good.
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Aug 7, 2018 05:45
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Trojan Kaiju posted:5E does have chase rules. Page 252 of the DMG. The gist of it is "participants can dash 3 + Con Mod times without penalty, any further and make a con save to prevent exhaustion. You can also attack instead of dashing. Chase ends either when one person stops, the quarry escapes, or it caught." This is less 'chase' rules and more just a rule for sprinting away from a fight. There isn't really anything you can do to slow others down or close the gap. Plus theres no real recourse to a wizard just hold person'ing on you while you are escaping which rolls back into the problem of 'no real way to get away from a fight'. Yet again its hoping you and the GM are on the same page about what should happen I guess.
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Aug 7, 2018 05:47
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Razorwired posted:http://www.siteofmanything.com/generators/items/random_magic_item_generator.html this generator is kind of fun. This has definitely created some that I think I could at least suggest that would be level appropriate which was already hard enough. Another idea I am leaning towards was a magic spellbook that allowed access to one cantrip from another class, and to prep one spell from the book a long rest (with spells found via copied scrolls like Wizards or whatever so the GM could have tight control what I had in there). I'm playing a cleric so I'm not exactly hurting from spells, but our party sorcerer is very offense oriented (no complaints, he has carried us through battles) so maybe an extra utility spell might be nice to have. I guess access to both cleric and wizard stuff can always be potentially gamebreaking though. I was hoping to think of something that was both funny and useful but I'm having trouble doing so.
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Aug 7, 2018 07:42
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I gave a Wizard in 13th Age a "Master's Wand". It allowed you to treat an attack roll as a natural 10 but when you used it the Master's spirit appeared and nitpicked your form and elocution to hell and back. The mechanic is disposable but I really enjoyed the theme of "super useful, but kind of annoying"
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Aug 7, 2018 08:09
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Rick posted:This has definitely created some that I think I could at least suggest that would be level appropriate which was already hard enough. My Cleric has been given both Witch Bolt at a low level, and now Invisibility as a form of loot and it hasn't really been too bad. I honestly never really used the former at all, though the latter may come in handy.
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Aug 7, 2018 08:53
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kingcom posted:I think thats why i've never seen horror work in D&D, all its mechanics, interactions and consequences resolve around combat as your single point of tension and failure. So you have to run a tone that works to actively avoid the core component of the game. Honestly the easiest route is just to accept that 'horror' is just a theme and what you're playing is horror-adventure; Castlevania isn't a horror game but it's an adventure game with a horror feel.
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Aug 7, 2018 09:07
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Lucas Archer posted:I’m running a 5e game for the first time, the Curse of Strahd, for 3 PC’s. Game is fun, the module is great. That’s my current 5e story. Yeah I'm part way through a Strahd campaign, it's a blast. I do like 4e but the modules were adequate at best so it's nice 5e has at least one good one.
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Aug 7, 2018 09:55
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Doorknob Slobber posted:does d&d 5e not have the skill challenges that 4e had? The whole three successes before two failures kind of thing that if I remember right one of the examples they used was a chase scene? Skill challenges are such a great idea, that 4e never properly managed to articulate; dungeon world is basically 'skill challenges, the game'
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Aug 7, 2018 09:58
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kingcom posted:This is less 'chase' rules and more just a rule for sprinting away from a fight. There isn't really anything you can do to slow others down or close the gap. Plus theres no real recourse to a wizard just hold person'ing on you while you are escaping which rolls back into the problem of 'no real way to get away from a fight'. Yet again its hoping you and the GM are on the same page about what should happen I guess. Your final clause there has me curious. Do other games have mechanics for when a character has been immobilized (hold person etc) and wants to flee? The way you phrased it implies that exists or should exist and I'm not understanding it
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Aug 7, 2018 13:44
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mastershakeman posted:Your final clause there has me curious. Do other games have mechanics for when a character has been immobilized (hold person etc) and wants to flee? The way you phrased it implies that exists or should exist and I'm not understanding it I think it is more that, during a chase scene, other systems let you take actions to change the distance between yourself and the opponent. In this case, Hold Person wouldn't be an instant win/lose button, but just a way to describe how ground is made up or lost in the chase.
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Aug 7, 2018 14:30
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