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KittyEmpress posted:gently caress I would honestly like this. Zanny and memorable.
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Aug 30, 2018 07:50
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KittyEmpress posted:gently caress I would honestly like this. This is the poo poo i was complaining about upthread.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:06
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KittyEmpress posted:gently caress I would honestly like this. Rolling a 20 shouldn't always guarantee a super-success, but it definitely shouldn't ever put you in a worse position than any other succeeding roll. In this case, she should have been more willing to believe outright that whatever you were doing was above-board, possibly provided a way to contact her when she wasn't on-duty, and sent you on your way. She's still a woman in a position of importance currently engaged in her day job, it's not like she's suddenly going to drop all of that just to go gallivanting after some handsome stranger. NPCs should still act like people, regardless of how well you roll. And introducing an opportunity for you to gradually woo a person of importance, who might be relied upon for aid later, would have been a good way for the DM to keep you engaged.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:10
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Section Z posted:By contrast, gently caress not finding the LITERAL key to progress because even though you searched the bodies, searched them again, then said you searched them some more as the party scratches their head on how to progress. It didn't count because you didn't specify that you were looking for a key Just have to establish early that your looting is a full autopsy
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Aug 30, 2018 08:37
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KittyEmpress posted:gently caress I would honestly like this. Oh wait this was supposed to be a success. Lol.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:43
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yeah that is exactly how you describe a random fluke failure for someone who is very competent at the thing they are trying.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:57
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Speaking of critical charts, has anyone had any success trying out the FFG Star Wars critical injury chart in 5e instead of boring old death saves? I feel like things like losing your arm in a battle is so much more narratively interesting than just "your HP falls to zero, with two slashes you fall to the ground. Have fun rolling a die for no effect on the game state for at least three rounds." We had one that was interesting this weekend where the main enemy they had been chasing for a while took our courageous bard down who started the whole dang thing, and then the rogue ran in and killed him in one fell swoop...but that was fun because combat ended and our bard didn't have to be bored. Has anyone tried this? Who wants to tell me why this is a bad idea? Bring it! 
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Aug 30, 2018 09:09
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What happens if you lose both arms? Can you just get them replaced with blasters/swords? Instead of death saves can you roll arm saves to have them reattached?
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Aug 30, 2018 09:16
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Bogan Krkic posted:What happens if you lose both arms? Can you just get them replaced with blasters/swords? Instead of death saves can you roll arm saves to have them reattached? e: Critical hit tables have been A Thing in D&D for a while, a problem is that the d20 system has very few channels of information to mess with for the minor injuries. Splicer fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Aug 30, 2018 |
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Aug 30, 2018 09:41
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Elfgames posted:you are almost always going to run into either "No. Try again." Also, like almost everything, talk to the players on setting expectation beforehand? I feel like since I don't play with unknown people I might be biased here, but that is just about the easiest hurdle to overcome.
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Aug 30, 2018 12:23
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Quidthulhu posted:Speaking of critical charts, has anyone had any success trying out the FFG Star Wars critical injury chart in 5e instead of boring old death saves? I feel like things like losing your arm in a battle is so much more narratively interesting than just "your HP falls to zero, with two slashes you fall to the ground. Have fun rolling a die for no effect on the game state for at least three rounds." Losing an arm can easily lead to a character being worthless and is worse than being killed. It's also more interesting than being killed, but you need a high lethality game with a known tone to pull it off. My last character actually lost an arm from our complicated crit chart and bled out (then got raised but never got regeneration until the very last session of the game). It worked fine due to very, very specific party based setups, but it would have been horrible for 3 other party members who all used 2 handed weapons.
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Aug 30, 2018 13:50
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P.d0t posted:If the character "is most of the adventure" then the adventure as-written should make the PCs care about that character. You and your GM are fundamentally misunderstanding how the book for CoS is meant to be used. It’s not a linear adventure, there is almost no written dialogue. Every NPC is a name, some history, some personality traits and maybe some development if certain things happen. The GM needs to do the work. It’s not an easy module to run. This module is clearly a bad fit for your table but I’m not gonna say the module failed at anything that it wasn’t trying to do in the first place.
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Aug 30, 2018 13:50
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I tried giving my group the option to narrate their own failures but they tended towards taking it very easy on themselves.
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Aug 30, 2018 13:55
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sebmojo posted:Sinister secret of saltmarsh. Thanks.
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Aug 30, 2018 15:31
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Epi Lepi posted:You and your GM are fundamentally misunderstanding how the book for CoS is meant to be used. It’s not a linear adventure, there is almost no written dialogue. Every NPC is a name, some history, some personality traits and maybe some development if certain things happen. The GM needs to do the work. It’s not an easy module to run. This module is clearly a bad fit for your table but I’m not gonna say the module failed at anything that it wasn’t trying to do in the first place. Is the book described in this manner in the copy? It seems weird to create a campaign that is heavy on GM work, and then push it for AL.
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Aug 30, 2018 16:45
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DalaranJ posted:Is the book described in this manner in the copy? 5e cannot fail, it can only be failed.
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Aug 30, 2018 16:52
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DalaranJ posted:Is the book described in this manner in the copy? Pages 5 and 6 cover all of this, plus how to steer players back on course, how to manage them going to overly difficult areas before they’re ready and how to make trivial encounters more challenging. They even describe it as “exceedingly open-ended - one of the hallmarks of the original Ravenloft.” I’m getting the sense that some of the most vocal and antagonistic posters here have never read, nor DM’d most of this stuff.
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Aug 30, 2018 16:54
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DalaranJ posted:Is the book described in this manner in the copy?
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Aug 30, 2018 16:58
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I dunno if there are any wotc-published 5e modules that aren't heavy on GM work This is a reasonable defense of it then. Anyone who is going to buy CoS will either be buying it as part of the WOTC line and will know what to expect, or will be buying it out of fondness for ravenloft.
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Aug 30, 2018 17:14
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DalaranJ posted:This is a reasonable defense of it then. Anyone who is going to buy CoS will either be buying it as part of the WOTC line and will know what to expect, or will be buying it out of fondness for ravenloft.
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Aug 30, 2018 17:16
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DalaranJ posted:Is the book described in this manner in the copy? From what I understand the AL quests are separate from what happens in the CoS book? Or maybe they're a different presentation? I honestly didn't really look at them since I have the book, can someone who has elaborate on what they're like? I skimmed some of the AL quests and it seemed like the first few at least were actually prelude stuff in Faerun before the party ends up in Barovia. Did I misinterpret?
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Aug 30, 2018 17:18
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AL modules aren't actually pulled from the hardcovers, they're separate adventures that are in the same setting or have similar themes, that timeline wise usually occur at or around the same time of the hardcover. Like for season 7, the tier 1 and 2 AL modules take place before Tomb of Annihilation, and the tier 3 and 4 modules take place after, but it's all in Chult. Speaking of AL, season 8 supposedly started today but there is no announcement or info anywhere on it, and I'm running tonight 
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Aug 30, 2018 17:27
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Epi Lepi posted:From what I understand the AL quests are separate from what happens in the CoS book? Or maybe they're a different presentation? I honestly didn't really look at them since I have the book, can someone who has elaborate on what they're like? I skimmed some of the AL quests and it seemed like the first few at least were actually prelude stuff in Faerun before the party ends up in Barovia. Did I misinterpret? The first CoS AL module “Suits of the Mists” is indeed mini-prelude adventures that end with dumping the party in Barovia. The rest of the modules follow a fairly linear path through it. You can play the modules or the hardcover in AL but the modules are much better suited to drop-in play.
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Aug 30, 2018 17:29
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Kaysette posted:The first CoS AL module “Suits of the Mists” is indeed mini-prelude adventures that end with dumping the party in Barovia. The rest of the modules follow a fairly linear path through it. You can play the modules or the hardcover in AL but the modules are much better suited to drop-in play. Okay, that sounds good. (Maybe I’ll have to look into AL for home play, some of my players have been haranguing me about 5e.) Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:For what it's worth, I purchased one because I was a new DM and wanted something to do the hard parts for me so I could focus on running the game and...it did not help and my players seemed to like the parts I made up more than the book content. It's totally legit criticism if you're buying the book to learn. Well, anecdote not = data, but yeah, this is the sort of thing I was worried about happening. What sorts of thing do people who GM find useful to be included in ‘open ended’ adventures?
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Aug 30, 2018 17:52
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Epi Lepi posted:You and your GM are fundamentally misunderstanding how the book for CoS is meant to be used. It’s not a linear adventure, there is almost no written dialogue. Every NPC is a name, some history, some personality traits and maybe some development if certain things happen. The GM needs to do the work. It’s not an easy module to run. This module is clearly a bad fit for your table but I’m not gonna say the module failed at anything that it wasn’t trying to do in the first place. Your contention that it's not a linear adventure seems at odds with your other contention that Ireena is a super important NPC to the larger plot. If the latter is true, then the module should try and get us invested in her questline, and it absolutely failed at that.
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Aug 30, 2018 18:03
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P.d0t posted:Your contention that it's not a linear adventure seems at odds with your other contention that Ireena is a super important NPC to the larger plot. I don't really think those statements are at odds, regardless, the module does give a GM a lot of information to convey to the players to make them invested, your GM once again failed to deliver any of it. She's not supposed to be a super amnesiac. She can't remember her early childhood, and her memories of Strahd's visits to her are hazy because she's been charmed. That's it regarding her memory. Your GM misread or misinterpreted that.
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Aug 30, 2018 18:22
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DalaranJ posted:What sorts of thing do people who GM find useful to be included in ‘open ended’ adventures? Not modern D&D in any shape or form. The published game has largely dwindled towards 4e-style linear narratives, and the problem is that 5e didn't adjust its tools from that but keeps pretending it can tell stories with other structures (like CoS and ToA.) You'd need actual hexcrawling and exploration rules, setups for factions and diplomacy, domain-level play, et cetera. Doing any of that would require effort though, so Mearls is allergic. edit: Also someone said it a couple pages ago so I'm going to call it out. The Lazy DM's guide is TRASH. Just like quantum ogres all over the loving place. Make a world. Make it good. Don't twist your game around because you're terrified of doing one minute of prep that might not get immediately used.
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Aug 30, 2018 18:47
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Epi Lepi posted:I don't really think those statements are at odds, regardless, the module does give a GM a lot of information to convey to the players to make them invested, your GM once again failed to deliver any of it. She's not supposed to be a super amnesiac. She can't remember her early childhood, and her memories of Strahd's visits to her are hazy because she's been charmed. That's it regarding her memory. Your GM misread or misinterpreted that. The fact that CoS has a planned conclusion (slaying Strahd and escaping Ravenloft) makes it a linear adventure. It has specific goals and expects you to carry those out. The fact that different goals get dealt out to various locations just hides that, but doesn't make it an actual sandbox or give players agency over its conclusion.
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Aug 30, 2018 18:50
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Epi Lepi posted:I don't really think those statements are at odds, regardless, the module does give a GM a lot of information to convey to the players to make them invested, your GM once again failed to deliver any of it. She's not supposed to be a super amnesiac. She can't remember her early childhood, and her memories of Strahd's visits to her are hazy because she's been charmed. That's it regarding her memory. Your GM misread or misinterpreted that. So 'interpreting' it as "has no helpful hints or clues" is somehow inaccurate? The NPC has one line of useful (vague) instructions and seemingly won't even be able to say "oh this is the place, we're here" if/when we arrive. As an NPC, that's trash, and the adventure overall is very poor at doing any sort of exposition, hence all the seeming dead-ends and player confusion.
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Aug 30, 2018 19:10
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DalaranJ posted:Okay, that sounds good. (Maybe I’ll have to look into AL for home play, some of my players have been haranguing me about 5e.) Like I just picked a random page of the open section in SKT: quote:Jalanthar This...is completely unhelpful. 3 paragraphs and a heading to say "uhh its a town with an inn". I'm glad I know which tribe of barbarian bit off the guy's ear but, since he doesn't want to talk about it(typical Damaran  ), my players will not.
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Aug 30, 2018 19:22
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The only thing adventure modules tend to have very well spelled out is combat. I'm running a pre-written adventure at the moment that has really great reviews, and presents a lot of information for the GM to draw from. But unless you're doing a straight dungeon crawl/combat encounter, there's still a lot left for the GM to prep. Especially when your players start talking to NPC's and speak to them like normal humans instead of Player Character Robots Built To Play DnD. They ask lots of random questions of people and look for help anywhere they can. Running a pre-made adventure still takes a decent amount of prep and improvisation. No pre-written campaign can give you all the hooks/info you need to get your specific table invested. I haven't read CoS though so I'm not sure how problematic it is. I do know a couple people who've played it recently and are having fun so it can't be the dumpster fire people seem to claim here.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:53
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P.d0t posted:So 'interpreting' it as "has no helpful hints or clues" is somehow inaccurate? The NPC has one line of useful (vague) instructions and seemingly won't even be able to say "oh this is the place, we're here" if/when we arrive. The NPC technically has no lines, which you don't seem to understand. Your GM came up with one vague line and then neglected to have her speak again. He is not DMing a module that suits his style of play. It doesn't sound like any of you including him are enjoying it. Why do you continue? Arivia posted:The fact that CoS has a planned conclusion (slaying Strahd and escaping Ravenloft) makes it a linear adventure. It has specific goals and expects you to carry those out. The fact that different goals get dealt out to various locations just hides that, but doesn't make it an actual sandbox or give players agency over its conclusion. This is a gross oversimplification. There's plenty of agency during the actual adventure. The party can flat out tell Ireena and Ismark to gently caress off and that doesn't break the actual adventure. You definitely lose something by doing so in my opinion but you can still get to that endpoint of slaying Strahd and escaping Barovia and still have a baller campaign doing so. Vallaki is full of agency. The Baron, Lady Watcher, Rictavio, etc can all be alive or dead or hate the party or love the party or be indifferent to the party by the end of their time there. From what I've read of other people's games a lot of parties get kicked out of Vallaki. My party staged a regime change and Ismark is the new Burgomeister after leaving the town of Barovia to become a ghost town. I really need to write up my campaign so far, we've taken a break for a while so my friend can go back to GMing out Starfinder game. Now Dead Suns is a hell of a railroad.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:01
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Quidthulhu posted:Speaking of critical charts, has anyone had any success trying out the FFG Star Wars critical injury chart in 5e instead of boring old death saves? I feel like things like losing your arm in a battle is so much more narratively interesting than just "your HP falls to zero, with two slashes you fall to the ground. Have fun rolling a die for no effect on the game state for at least three rounds." Dig out the old rolemaster crit charts so you can have it be thematic with the weapon being used 
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Aug 30, 2018 21:06
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poorlifedecision posted:The only thing adventure modules tend to have very well spelled out is combat. I'm running a pre-written adventure at the moment that has really great reviews, and presents a lot of information for the GM to draw from. But unless you're doing a straight dungeon crawl/combat encounter, there's still a lot left for the GM to prep.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:22
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Epi Lepi posted:This is a gross oversimplification. There's plenty of agency during the actual adventure. The party can flat out tell Ireena and Ismark to gently caress off and that doesn't break the actual adventure. You definitely lose something by doing so in my opinion but you can still get to that endpoint of slaying Strahd and escaping Barovia and still have a baller campaign doing so. Vallaki is full of agency. The Baron, Lady Watcher, Rictavio, etc can all be alive or dead or hate the party or love the party or be indifferent to the party by the end of their time there. From what I've read of other people's games a lot of parties get kicked out of Vallaki. My party staged a regime change and Ismark is the new Burgomeister after leaving the town of Barovia to become a ghost town. I said agency over its conclusion. The ending is inevitable and always the same between different groups playing CoS, which makes it a linear adventure. An actual sandbox where the PCs can set their own goals et cetera CoS is not. And that's fine, the D&D models of sandboxes are really hard to sell as products. There's plenty of good linear adventures out there. The problem is that CoS is pretending it's not a linear adventure and not giving enough support to make the linear adventure work well. That is the issue at hand.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:23
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Screw that go all out. Here's one of many pages based on damage type vs target 
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Aug 30, 2018 21:27
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Arivia posted:I said agency over its conclusion. The ending is inevitable and always the same between different groups playing CoS, which makes it a linear adventure. An actual sandbox where the PCs can set their own goals et cetera CoS is not. And that's fine, the D&D models of sandboxes are really hard to sell as products. There's plenty of good linear adventures out there. The problem is that CoS is pretending it's not a linear adventure and not giving enough support to make the linear adventure work well. That is the issue at hand. Thats not what a sandbox is. CoS is not a linear Adventure, as while it had an end point, how and were you get to that end point will almost never be the same for most groups. And CoS does give the support. From everything P.d0t has said his GM just sucks at using the material.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:44
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Arivia posted:I said agency over its conclusion. The ending is inevitable and always the same between different groups playing CoS, which makes it a linear adventure. An actual sandbox where the PCs can set their own goals et cetera CoS is not. And that's fine, the D&D models of sandboxes are really hard to sell as products. There's plenty of good linear adventures out there. The problem is that CoS is pretending it's not a linear adventure and not giving enough support to make the linear adventure work well. That is the issue at hand. CoS isn't pretending to be anything, it is what it is and what that is, is absolutely not a linear adventure.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:47
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MonsterEnvy posted:Thats not what a sandbox is. CoS is not a linear Adventure, as while it had an end point, how and were you get to that end point will almost never be the same for most groups. Yes, it is. A sandbox in D&D terms is a setting designed without regard to the players or a specific plot, that the PCs are free to engage with at any time and in any way they want. The most easily understood is the classic megadungeon like Castle Greyhawk or Undermountain. CoS presumes player access, activities, and provides them with a specific plot objective - therefore it isn't a sandbox in D&D terms. It is a linear adventure because it prescribes a solution and the methods taken to effect that solution. Let's not forget, Ravenloft is intentionally about removing player agency and freedom as it imprisons the PCs and then asks them to get out in a specific way. @Epi Lepi: It meets the qualifications to be a linear adventure. It is one. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's worth accepting what it is. You might not feel that it is one, but I'd recommend you look at other models of play, both within D&D and outside, in order to understand the classification. You may be confusing the terms linear adventure and railroad. CoS is the former, but not the latter.
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Aug 30, 2018 22:10
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Arivia posted:Yes, it is. A sandbox in D&D terms is a setting designed without regard to the players or a specific plot, that the PCs are free to engage with at any time and in any way they want. The most easily understood is the classic megadungeon like Castle Greyhawk or Undermountain. I don't know that I'd classify the old dungeon crawls as a sandbox exactly. The players can't really do what they want, they have to get out of the dungeon. A sandbox requires more player agency than simply "there are 4 doors, choose one". The closest thing I've seen to an actual module sandbox is something like Kingmaker
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Aug 30, 2018 22:18
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