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chitoryu12 posted:Here's one of those real itineraria. That's really cool, and about the level of map a PC might be able to buy from a cartographer. Way easier to add stuff to it as a GM, too, since entire mountain ranges can simply not be recorded as being "irrelevant", among other things!
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Feb 25, 2019 22:01
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Sanford posted:One issue I have with my world, exacerbated by the players’ insistence on a world map, is that everything is really close together. Like from Vultan’s Wall, the great fortified city of the North, to the mighty trading empire of Kesh in the south, is... 200 miles? Then there’s the centaur tribes to the west, and another player says she ran from there to where they are now, so that can’t be far. Is that just a “suspension of disbelief, don’t mention it” job? Terrain. There's a reason sea and river transport was so important, and it's that (before engines) unless you have a straight, flat, well maintained road with good bridges, it's extremely slow, tedious, and inefficient to move goods by land. 200 miles of hills and bogs might as well be an impassable wall as far as trade caravans are concerned. Crossing a river could be a multi-day event for a caravan. A moderate amount of rain could make mud, meaning partially unloading, unbogging, and reloading your ox cart. Every mile*. Even on what counts as a road. And god forbid you meet someone coming the other way because "pull off to one side" isn't a thing for either of you. You'd also probably be surprised at how many carts and wagons you'd need to fill a single smallish ship. To this day it's real loving hard to move any significant amount of stuff through non-road terrain. Did you ever play spintires? *can't find it but I have read a description of moving stuff in bullock carts in 1800s Australia that mention going a couple of miles a day because of getting bogged every quarter to half mile, or sometimes just "because uphill". E: so yeah, 200 miles might be functionally impossible North to South for anything bigger than a person on a horse, but "ran west ~1000 miles in a month" might easily be possible for a fantasy hypermarathoner. Because of terrain. E2: also, overland trade goes around terrain that's impractical (or by water), but small groups of adventurers or smugglers certainly don't have to. Fast vs safe. Or monitored vs unmonitored. Or whatever. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 00:48
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Some dude named Chuck. I'm stealing this.
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Feb 26, 2019 01:30
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One of my players is trying to join to the local city council in order to position himself to be appointed Lord over the city. The council is mostly made up of guildmasters and nobility, and owning property and some kind of business interest in the city are prerequisites for joining the council. The character is a noble, but a disgraced one who only recently came back into owning property. He has also been training to start moonlighting as a cat burglar in order to supplement his income from adventuring. How can I create tension between his need to join the council and his need to raise money for his business via cat burgling?
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Feb 27, 2019 16:30
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kidkissinger posted:One of my players is trying to join to the local city council in order to position himself to be appointed Lord over the city. The council is mostly made up of guildmasters and nobility, and owning property and some kind of business interest in the city are prerequisites for joining the council. The character is a noble, but a disgraced one who only recently came back into owning property. He has also been training to start moonlighting as a cat burglar in order to supplement his income from adventuring. Yes, how can you create tension between his need to ingratiate himself with the rich and powerful and his need to steal their belongings?
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Feb 27, 2019 16:50
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Hopefully he's campaigning on the high rate of increase in crime in the area
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Feb 27, 2019 16:53
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One of the other nobles is a masked crime fighter
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Feb 27, 2019 17:01
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Imagine campaigning on eradicating the evils of his alter ego and all the long-term grift he can drum up from that.
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Feb 27, 2019 17:04
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Selina Kyle is the only candidate who can take down Catwoman!
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Feb 27, 2019 17:08
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Freudian posted:Yes, how can you create tension between his need to ingratiate himself with the rich and powerful and his need to steal their belongings? well yes, it's a good setup, I agree  . I'm just soliciting particularly novel ideas, since this thread is great at coming up with them!
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Feb 27, 2019 17:27
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At some point you might have a council member catch on and try to blackmail the player into stealing something for them, or even to try to make the player support their own power play.
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Feb 27, 2019 17:34
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Something innocuous they steal turns out to be the macguffin to end all macguffins and they need to either come clean, reverse-steal it back to where it was, or come up with some feasible excuse as to why they've got it and where they got it from.
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Feb 27, 2019 17:37
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One of the other candidates is running on a law and order ticket. He's a hardline paladin which has up until now turned all the other nobles off of him, but now their poo poo keeps on getting robbed... Some of the character's associates from his criminal days recognise him and ask for the promise of cushy government jobs, with the implication that they can expose him if he doesn't play ball.
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Feb 27, 2019 18:27
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sebmojo posted:One of the other nobles is a masked crime fighter Sanford posted:Something innocuous they steal turns out to be the macguffin to end all macguffins and they need to either come clean, reverse-steal it back to where it was, or come up with some feasible excuse as to why they've got it and where they got it from. Just do both of these things! Town has a secret history of demon (or whatever) infestation, and a Buffy-like crew centuries ago closed the hellgate and sealed it shut with a fancy gold statue on a stone pedestal. Fastforward and the organization that is supposed to be guarding the statue with their lives is now just one rich family in town that just knows that nobody is supposed to go into the old vault in the east wing and don't take any special precautions beyond the house guard. Intrepid thief steals the statue, make it an actual falcon if you want to really enhance it's mcguffin status, and then poo poo starts to go wrong in town. Personally I'd make the second half of that slow, like background noise over multiple other adventures. Portal takes forever to open, first stage is various evil people in town start to hear whispers and begin making cults or something, then smaller things start coming through. Between the robbery and the hell breaking loose have the party do some dungeon crawl or something that is definitely tangentially demon related to throw them off the innocent looking statue being the cause, and go from there. At some point the family would come clean after slowly losing ground fighting the hellspawn in secret, and the secret of the statue is revealed, and now your people need to get it from the fence or whatever before anyone finds out it was them
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Feb 27, 2019 18:39
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Players are going to meet a dashing, handsome, annoying swordsman. His retinue are Cr3 knights from the monster manual, and the guy himself needs to be quite a lot better - can anyone advise me on what he should be? He claims to be the greatest swordsman who ever lived and although he’s not, he is pretty good. Is there any source of stat blocks for this kind of character or would I be better just writing him myself from scratch? If there’s anything that comes with flashy sword tricks built in that would be amazing. Also he is going to be leading a contingent that can definitely wipe out the players, because they’ve been getting a bit trigger-happy recently. How should I deliver the message “these guys will kill you if you try and fight fair”, or should I just let them get on with it and plan to capture rather than tpk? I can see at least half a dozen ways they can at least escape or avoid conflict if not outright win, I just don’t think they’ll use them.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:55
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Sanford posted:Players are going to meet a dashing, handsome, annoying swordsman. His retinue are Cr3 knights from the monster manual, and the guy himself needs to be quite a lot better - can anyone advise me on what he should be? System and Edition would matter here
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Feb 28, 2019 23:06
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Oh yeah sorry, D&D 5e. I need some form of Npc generator.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:17
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Sanford posted:Players are going to meet a dashing, handsome, annoying swordsman. His retinue are Cr3 knights from the monster manual, and the guy himself needs to be quite a lot better - can anyone advise me on what he should be? He claims to be the greatest swordsman who ever lived and although he’s not, he is pretty good. Is there any source of stat blocks for this kind of character or would I be better just writing him myself from scratch? If there’s anything that comes with flashy sword tricks built in that would be amazing. Get them to roll Insight and whatever it comes up as you say "These guys will kill you if you try and fight them fair." If they then get killed and are grumpy about it, turns out they were captured all along because these guys are that drat good. If they're happy with TPK then let that stand. TPK sounds a bit serious for the rolled-up newspaper on the nose to get them to realise their limits, but I don't know what sort of game you're running as far as that goes.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:39
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I misread that and pictured a swordsman backed up by a trio of warriors who are basically d'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers, bemusedly letting the rookie get his hand in but all too willing to intervene if he's in actual danger.
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Mar 1, 2019 02:54
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Sanford posted:Players are going to meet a dashing, handsome, annoying swordsman. His retinue are Cr3 knights from the monster manual, and the guy himself needs to be quite a lot better - can anyone advise me on what he should be? He claims to be the greatest swordsman who ever lived and although he’s not, he is pretty good. Is there any source of stat blocks for this kind of character or would I be better just writing him myself from scratch? If there’s anything that comes with flashy sword tricks built in that would be amazing. One of my rules of thumb as a GM is to never put an encounter into the game that I don't want the players to lose: I always try to think of a reason why the enemies won't execute the whole party straight off if they win, and then that way I don't have to worry about whether or not the players are going to win. So I would definitely let the players make some Insight checks to see that they're outclassed, but also have these knights fight for capture rather than keeps. After all, they're law-abiding citizens, they're not just going to murder a bunch of randos because they started a scrap even if said randos are using lethal damage themselves.
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Mar 1, 2019 09:13
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Sanford posted:Players are going to meet a dashing, handsome, annoying swordsman. His retinue are Cr3 knights from the monster manual, and the guy himself needs to be quite a lot better - can anyone advise me on what he should be? He claims to be the greatest swordsman who ever lived and although he’s not, he is pretty good. Is there any source of stat blocks for this kind of character or would I be better just writing him myself from scratch? If there’s anything that comes with flashy sword tricks built in that would be amazing. You could have the PCs encounter them easily killing something far above their current CR level while making jokes. Also gives you an easier out to exhibit powers but then not necessarily be able to use them because they just blew them on monsters (and if it looks like the PCs will win they can retreat and then 'fight them we are fresh') next time. Ceros_X fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 13:45
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Turtlicious posted:I'm stealing this. yessssssssssssssss kidkissinger posted:One of my players is trying to join to the local city council in order to position himself to be appointed Lord over the city. The council is mostly made up of guildmasters and nobility, and owning property and some kind of business interest in the city are prerequisites for joining the council. The character is a noble, but a disgraced one who only recently came back into owning property. He has also been training to start moonlighting as a cat burglar in order to supplement his income from adventuring. One of the things the PC steals turns out to have a secret compartment in it that the PC finds; inside is all of the evidence he needs to prove that one of the other local noble families has been rigging the town council elections for almost a century, which is why they remain obscenely wealthy despite the fact that the mines that provided most of the family's income for years have recently been played out; they just keep ensuring that new councillors will be ones that are friendly to them and not smart enough to start investigating why the town keeps paying a premium for ore that isn't showing up and how a bunch of old entitlements have all been redirected towards one single family trust. Oh, and it turns out that said noble family is also the backbone of an evil demon-worshipping cult. So they should probably be gotten rid of. Problem: how do the PCs use any of this evidence without admitting to the way it was obtained, especially since any trial of that magnitude will be overseen by paladins who are known to make liberal use of lie-detection spells? EDIT: Make it clear that if the PC pursues this matter through legal channels the resultant stain on his record will permanently disqualify him from joining the city council. Make him decide between an easy way to get rid of a bad nasty, or the ready growth of his own personal political power.
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Mar 1, 2019 18:41
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Ceros_X posted:You could have the PCs encounter them easily killing something far above their current CR level while making jokes. Also gives you an easier out to exhibit powers but then not necessarily be able to use them because they just blew them on monsters (and if it looks like the PCs will win they can retreat and then 'fight them we are fresh') next time. Having them roll up on the knights taking turns posing with a dragon they have just killed is a classic one. Make sure they get the message though!
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Mar 1, 2019 21:37
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:yessssssssssssssss I might steal it too, with my players being in their 50s I don't even think I'd need to make up jargon to stop metagaming, "this is a dps race but you need to CC the adds so they won't drop a hot on the boss" or "you'll need an aggro reset for this fight" will be equally incomprehensible to both players and characters.
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Mar 2, 2019 00:59
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Cross-posting from the PbtA thread:Freudian posted:I'm running a one-shot of Uncharted Worlds for some friends - this is the first time I've run a PbtA (or any game honestly) and I'm kind of nervous, what are things I should know going in? What should I have prepared that I completely forgot? Will this go on my permanent record?
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Mar 2, 2019 01:04
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Setting up the party is important, have everyone make their characters together. Make or find a list of almost but not quite results, i found that the most taxing part of pbta games.
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Mar 2, 2019 09:39
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I realise I spend way more time planning games than running them. Probably because since I run stuff online with people on other time zones, so I need to really set aside time and herd cats for the actual sessions. I've mentioned a lot of interested in King Arthur Pendragon and not a lot of certainty in how to actually run it. Though I get the feeling that it might actually work pretty well for solo games or at least sessions, am I right to guess that?
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Mar 6, 2019 11:57
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Do any of you have experience running Eastern or Asian themed campaigns? I'm looking for some recommendations on modules, or even just themes that were fun for the party. For background, we're using 5e D&D. The setting itself is something we've homebrewed together - it's devoid of any humans, elves, or other fantasy races. Instead, the players are encouraged to "re-skin" existing races. That helps us keep some mechanical integrity as we try to fit the more exotic theme. Here's the document my players will be using, if anyone is interested in checking it out or offering feedback: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jiwKccujL3E8yVww26evCJavD58d7VL3pw1Q9V5g-5s/edit?usp=sharing
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Mar 7, 2019 05:46
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I realise I spend way more time planning games than running them. Probably because since I run stuff online with people on other time zones, so I need to really set aside time and herd cats for the actual sessions. Pendragon is trickier than some games to run off-the-cuff - it rewards prep. But it works very well for solo sessions, definitely; note how many Arthurian stories are about a lone knight on a quest. Just do that in a game. Bam, you're set.
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Mar 7, 2019 07:07
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Pendragon is trickier than some games to run off-the-cuff - it rewards prep. But it works very well for solo sessions, definitely; note how many Arthurian stories are about a lone knight on a quest. Just do that in a game. Bam, you're set. I thought so, and the game itself does suggest solo quests. I more got the impression that a solo/one-on-one game would be good for learning the ropes of the system, not having to do cat-herding on top of everything else, and the way it works with player characters having all the basic skills they need to be reasonably competent at what they're expected to do (there's some jokes to be made how the system is class-based, but the only classes are Knight and Lady) as well as the very smart decision that, outside of character creation, skills generally aren't competing with each other for limited resources.
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Mar 7, 2019 07:33
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Main downside of Pendragon for a 1-on-1 game is the whole "your passions were thwarted and frustrated, you go mad and run off into the woods for a bit" thing, though I guess you can gloss over that rule. One of the interesting things I found about Pendragon in long-term play is the way it tends to nudge you towards something like Ars Magica-style troupe play without necessarily having that baked in from the beginning. As your characters begin to sire families and their kids start growing up you end up with choices like "do I play this adventure as my eldest knight, who has lots of glory and experience and will likely smash it, or do I risk my heir on this, in the hopes that by adventuring with these well-tested knights the lad will win a stack of Glory for himself which will set him in good stead when my eldest knight finally retires or dies?", and you start getting used to playing multiple members of the same dynasty. It's only a short step from there to the ref throwing in bit-part characters for people whose knights are absent to play so that they can stay involved in the game.
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Mar 7, 2019 12:48
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Warthur posted:Main downside of Pendragon for a 1-on-1 game is the whole "your passions were thwarted and frustrated, you go mad and run off into the woods for a bit" thing, though I guess you can gloss over that rule. I'd argue that it's actually easier to handle that kind of result in a one-on-one game, because the GM can just say "okay so it's next year and you come to your senses" instead of having to basically banish you from usefulness while the rest of the party keeps adventuring.
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Mar 7, 2019 14:49
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Or work the running around naked in the woods into the story. Using Passions seems to be a fun double-edged sword, because it can give you insane buffs if you pull it off apparently. In a solo adventure I'd probably change things a bit. ...and now I'm wondering about a system that incorporates Dwarf Fortress style Strange Moods.
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Mar 7, 2019 15:13
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Passions in Pendragon are super fuckin' powerful, yes; +10 to any skill on a success (or doubling that skill on a crit) is insanely strong, mechanically. The aforementioned "you go crazy and run off to live in the forest" result on a fumble is a pretty strong counterbalance, though. For the setting, though, they're intensely thematic; they represent your knight actually giving a poo poo about something, and frankly having your character's motivations reflected in the mechanics seems commonplace now but was revolutionary for the time. The fact that you can only be Inspired in one skill at a time keeps them from being too gamebreaking (sure, you now have a massive Sword skill but your Lance skill still sucks), and honestly, if they make a PC super-awesome in a scene... run with that. You're not running a game with a low-fantasy hero who needs to be grim and gritty, this is a game where you're playing a goddamn Arthurian knight. In most games, things like 'titles of nobility' and 'grants of land' and 'fame and fortune' are your goals; in Pendragon that's your starting position. Let the knights be awesome - then give them Glory for it, that's what it's there for. Even the most gamebreaking, unbalanced character will age out of the game before too long, so don't sweat it. This is, IMHO, the most crucial advice in running Pendragon - your characters shouldn't have to work to be awesome, they're knights. By definition they are already awesome. Their goal is to get so famous that they can be extra-awesome. If they get to be super-duper-awesome they can join the Round Table and nerds will know their names more than a millennia later. Don't skimp on Glory, don't be adversarial, let the knights be awesome... and keep in mind that there's a reason that Pendragon has no "Intelligence" stat, because sometimes being awesome means being dumb as hell. (EDIT: I have strong opinions about this game, heh)
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Mar 7, 2019 17:03
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My players met the Grand Theologian last night, first amongst the priests of the various religions in the city. Rumours abound that he’s gone a bit strange and they discovered that he thinks he is the god he supposedly worships. What they don’t know yet is that he’s faking it to throw off the Chosen (religious police, current main bad guys) and he’s actually of perfectly sound mind. Our paladin just said in the WhatsApp that he finds it offensive when someone masquerades as a god, even if it’s not a god he worships. Then he directly asked me if this guy genuinely believes he’s the god, or if he’s faking it. What should I say? I don’t want to lie, but it feels like anything other than outright rebuttal (like “you don’t know that yet”) is as good as saying yes.
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Mar 7, 2019 17:06
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"He seems to believe it" might work - it's not lying if you're telling him the true perspective of his character. Is he good at faking it? I'd think he would be.
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Mar 7, 2019 17:11
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Sanford posted:My players met the Grand Theologian last night, first amongst the priests of the various religions in the city. Rumours abound that he’s gone a bit strange and they discovered that he thinks he is the god he supposedly worships. What they don’t know yet is that he’s faking it to throw off the Chosen (religious police, current main bad guys) and he’s actually of perfectly sound mind. i strongly feel that you shouldn't be answering questions like this.
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Mar 7, 2019 17:16
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kidkissinger posted:i strongly feel that you shouldn't be answering questions like this. Seriously, what's he going to ask next, the location of the hidden treasure? In my extended gaming group we would answer any such question with FOIP, find out in play.
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Mar 7, 2019 17:25
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:"He seems to believe it" might work - it's not lying if you're telling him the true perspective of his character. Is he good at faking it? I'd think he would be. Yeah he’s very convincing and they like him a lot so they want to believe him. I’ve never had an npc they just immediately like before. I think is what I’ll say. kidkissinger posted:i strongly feel that you shouldn't be answering questions like this. You are almost definitely right but I’ve had a tough time getting this player to contribute much to the off-session chat so I’d like to encourage him.
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Mar 7, 2019 17:27
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Passions in Pendragon are super fuckin' powerful, yes; +10 to any skill on a success (or doubling that skill on a crit) is insanely strong, mechanically. The aforementioned "you go crazy and run off to live in the forest" result on a fumble is a pretty strong counterbalance, though. Make sure you only give them +10 to a single skill of their choice on a passion success! That's the rules, but you'd be surprised how many groups don't get ir right. A house rule that has really helped our game is to remove the +100 glory from the Chivalry bonus (+3 armour and high traits are already rad) and the +100 Glory from the Religious bonus because you already get a ton of passive glory (minimum of 80 to qualify) because the passive glory can get really out of hand. A knight with both of those will be getting a minimum of 280 points per year which 1) makes knights that don't have it feel really poo poo because they don't have the bonus and also won't Ultra Level Up as fast and 2) glory rewards for doing stuff feel like they matter less, who cares about 50 glory for being at the King's Wedding when you get a breezy 400 a year just for existing. No one is going to risk it all on a cool play or all out attack in a battle at that level of income. It sounds like its antithetical to the "let the knights be awesome" thing, but when I said it gets out of hand I mean it. You can easily end up getting enough glory every session to counter the effects of aging so your knight just lives forever, and you might not want that in your game about dynasty and legacy building. But maybe you do and should just go wild with it!
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Mar 7, 2019 17:53
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