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DarkLich posted: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.
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Mar 7, 2019 19:07
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EthanSteele posted: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.
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Mar 7, 2019 19:21
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3 of the 5 players in my upcoming 5e campaign are going to be be half elves, with the other 2 being firbolg and human. I'm having a difficult time coming up with an idea to make that interesting, either through half elven lore or their place in the world. The premise of the campaign is that a clandestine group is distributing a highly addictive narcotic through the city that at high dosages makes the user see into the ethereal plane, basically "hallucinate" the weirdness there. A night hag is leading the cult responsible for its distribution, and she's using her power of plane shifting to the ethereal to manipulate users into joining her if they are strong of will, or planting a seed into those that aren't that when activated basically makes them go The Thing and cause mayhem to everything around them. Her goal is to weaken society so she can take the mcguffin and cause untold suffering etc Any ideas?
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Mar 7, 2019 20:55
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Are there any go to books that are good resources for running urban or megacity adventures/campaigns? System and fantasy/sci-fi doesn't really matter.
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Mar 7, 2019 21:32
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mango sentinel posted:Are there any go to books that are good resources for running urban or megacity adventures/campaigns? System and fantasy/sci-fi doesn't really matter. The Ravnica book just came out and is pretty decent. You could run that as is or reskin it.
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Mar 7, 2019 21:52
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Nephzinho posted:The Ravnica book just came out and is pretty decent. You could run that as is or reskin it. I actually feel like that's probably the thinnest aspect of that book, it's why I'm asking.
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Mar 7, 2019 21:54
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mango sentinel posted:I actually feel like that's probably the thinnest aspect of that book, it's why I'm asking. What specifically do you mean? How to manage events happening in different sectors? Politics? Travel?
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Mar 7, 2019 21:56
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Warthur posted:How old are their kids at this point? I found that by the time that PC knights were hitting this point they were already looking at the aging downward spiral and starting to adventure more as their children so as to build up their experience and Glory. Currently the oldest child is 10. With the bonuses we would have had 3 knights getting 422 passive glory a year from the age of 25 when the kids are 4 at the oldest. That passive accounted for over 50% of their total glory earned. There have been games where you get enough glory each year to counter the age spiral by putting your 1k Glory points into stats every session, because you can get over 1k glory every session so you end up with knights hitting like 110 years old. But again, its a house rule we put in because we felt having the Chivalry armour boost and whatever your Religious boost was is bonus enough let alone getting rewarded in triplicate for high traits from getting glory for having them, glory for them being chivalrous and then also armour on top. In our game we felt that getting 30 glory for doing a big cool thing didn't feel that rad when you got 400 just for existing and it felt even less rad when you were the guy that was more likely to die and was just majorly less rad in general than everyone else as they accelerated off. We were using Knights and Ladies chargen if that makes a difference.
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Mar 7, 2019 21:59
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kazr posted:3 of the 5 players in my upcoming 5e campaign are going to be be half elves, with the other 2 being firbolg and human. I'm having a difficult time coming up with an idea to make that interesting, either through half elven lore or their place in the world. I would put the question back to the players: - Are half elves as common in the city as they are in this party? Why/why not? - What sort of assumptions get made about you because you're a half elf? Why are they justified? Why are they not? - Are there full blooded elves in the city, too? How do the people in the city feel about them? How do you feel about them? - To the human: Is there a reason you are hanging around with these guys rather than your own kind? Is your character used to being a minority in an adventuring party? How do they feel about it? - To the firbolg: What stories did your gran used to tell you about half elves? Do you think any of them are likely to be true?
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Mar 7, 2019 22:57
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EthanSteele posted: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's really not hard to rack up 1k Glory, but considering that you can have multiple stat losses due to Aging, I find it'll really only push back the effects of age, not forestall them forever. Hell, I saw knights age out of a game where we were each averaging 1k/year and were regularly outclassing half the Round Table (our GM was generous); all it takes is a couple of unlucky rolls on the Aging Table and you're losing 4 stat points. Having said that, it's not necessarily a terrible thing to have characters stay awesome even into their old age - after all, Arthur does it. So does like half his court. Dudes are still swinging swords and killing each other at age seventy or so. It's not something you always want to do, but there's nothing intrinsically objectionable about it. There is a serious issue with "some PCs have Chivalry/Religious Bonuses, some don't;" one of the hallmarks of 1985 game design that no edition has ever shaken. I find that to be more an issue for a GM to address than anything else (if the PCs are active post-Guenevere's Court, getting the non-bonus knights into Courtly Romance earlier will absolutely help them stay level on the Glory curve), but it is a problem. One thing I've seen suggested is that once the PCs form a fellowship of some sort - and generate a Loyalty (Group) Passion - then every knight in the group gets the Glory for Chivalrous or Religious Knights if more than half of the group qualify. You'll get credit for your chivalry if you're spending all your time hanging around with Lancelot and Gareth, after all, even if you're no shining example yourself - and that's what Glory is, it's getting credit. On the whole, though, I try not to worry about it too much. Hell, it's not as though Glory points are the only way your character gets better at things - it was much more an issue in our games to see players trying to get as many Experience Checks as humanly possible before the Winter Phase came, up to and including "wait let me treat the wounded, I want to get better at my Chirurgery!" "...you only have a Chirurgery of 1!" "Yeah, but that means if I save ANY of them I'll crit!"
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Mar 8, 2019 02:11
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That's why I said it was a houserule we used and said it was something worth thinking about it if it becomes something you don't like in your game, definitely not a thing you should do without playing a few sessions. For us it had been a problem previously where the knights kept going literally forever which meant there was no reason to engage in the dynasty building stuff at all which didn't feel great and then in our current game it meant three knights hit 5k glory before the other two hit 2k because on top of getting 200 glory for having high traits and passions they were getting another 200 on top of extra armour and bonus health/damage/etc while the other two were suffering major wounds every other session because they hadn't managed to get their weapon skill to above 20 from glory bonuses. I think it's also better to do a policy that affects everyone equally such as "you don't get +100 glory for the thing" than not letting some guys get into a thing the others are doing to help them catch up. Ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure and all that. But that's just our game! The game obviously works perfectly fine without that little tweak and there is nothing inherently wrong with the way it works normally, but it can get a little much which you might not want from your dynasty building game and its a thing we've seen a bunch of groups have issues with. I think we're using the Book of the Estate which we've liked a lot too. Book of Feasts is great fun. Otherwise the only other thing I can think of as advice is: make sure to push the knights on their famous traits and passions. Let players work towards and passions and directed traits easily, its way more fun when they have multiple things pulling at them; having a directed trait of +8 Trusting of Merlin so you're at 26 Trusting is really good because he's not a fucker at all. You are either Inspired by a passion and get +10 (+20 on a crit) to a single skill for the battle round or rest of scene or you are not, you can't be double Inspired by two passions and be picking up autocrits on your skills. Remember the getting knocked off your horse/knocked over size rules. Enjoy having a wild time being a guy just off to the side of Arthurian myth filled with many Large Feelings that you can't contain.
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Mar 8, 2019 04:49
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My first idea was to make reaching Chivalrous or Religious Knight status a one-time bonus rather than an ongoing thing. Do wonder how best to play Merlin from that example. I did just reread The Once and Future King, possibly a good way is to have him generally be true to his word and have a soft spot for the little guy, but ultimately considers most people a means to an end and has a scarily detached view of the world. (something that comes back to bite him)
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Mar 8, 2019 10:17
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Our GM plays Merlin as if he was a player character in a game and we're all NPCs. He walks up and goes "help me with this" and then walks off and you either help him or you don't and if you live by the time he's done he'll walk past you going "you didn't die? well done" and then walk off and you either follow him or you don't. He'll never say thank you and the closest you'll get to thanks from him is him manipulating someone else by going "oh, and those guys helped me" and you're actually just hirelings from OD&D as far as he's concerned. Don't try and make Uther likeable is another thing! If you're playing on Roll20 the sheet automates the British Christian religious bonus (and any Religious bonus that gives you +damage) as +damage die instead of just +damage to the rolled total. ie. it does it at +2d6 instead of +2 which is way too strong and also wrong.
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Mar 8, 2019 21:54
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And reading the Book of Uther, I get the impression that one of the better ways to portay Uther's court, and probably medieval aristocracy in general, as gangsters; specifically somewhere between the violent bravado of a street gang or pirate crew and the veneer of civility and careful organisation of a mafia. Fanatically loyal to each other, with betrayals being significant, often splitting on grudges that can turn into generational feuds, contemptuous at best of everyone else who doesn't at least entertain them or live a lifestyle they can respect, and big on making statements and shows of power. (and it's not exactly unfitting, given iirc the original italian Mafia has a lot of cultural traits and possibly full on lines of descent from Roman aristocrats and Italian merchant princes, and not even getting into the Church's shenanigans) And like gangsters, they can be friendly, even agreeable when times are good and you're doing what they want you to, but as soon as they want something from you, well... there's a reason they call it 'an offer you can't refuse'.
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Mar 9, 2019 14:09
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Yes! Exactly!
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Mar 9, 2019 17:25
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Today my party hosed up. There were hobgoblin pirates in a nearby cove who had kidnapped a few fishermen. The party went after them, got their asses kicked mainly thanks to a frankly unreasonable string of bad rolls and had to beat a retreat. I'm going by 13th Age rules on that and that means they're taking a major story setback. The hobgoblins have had a full night with their prisoners (during which the party also had a spectacular falling out with the town officials and one of the players is probably making a new PC, but that's just an aside, I think). My thinking is, in the morning, the hobgoblins arrive in full force, prisoners tied to the mast of their ship. Threats of torture made the fishermen reveal that the town is practically undefended save for some heroic adventurers, who the hobgoblins know now aren't all that hot. They want to conquer the town, cause that's what hobgoblins do, and they want the hero adventurers to do a job for them, which leads us to the next dungeon, where the party gets to turn the tables on the pirates. Alternatively: the hobgoblins know a trading ship is due to arrive within a few days. They want control of the town for just long enough to stage an assault on the ship. Losing the ship's trade would probably cripple the town in the long run. Not sure. Ship makes more sense, grunt work for pirates is a more natural segue into another dungeon. Or is there anything else exciting this setup (pirates have hostages, adventurers were beaten, trade ship about to arrive) would lend itself to?
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Mar 9, 2019 22:07
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Go with the second - it gives a firm goal/situation for the party to work and plan around. It also gives them a recovery route afterwards: if they fail and the trade ship gets taken, they can work on fixing the damage.
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Mar 9, 2019 22:26
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My Lovely Horse posted:Today my party hosed up. I would go with "hobgoblins trade the hostages (and their knowledge that the town is basically defenceless) for its surrender" and have the hobgoblins move in as an occupying force with the goal of setting the town up as a permanent base of operations for any evil pirates who want shore leave and repairs. The PCs get to be a plucky resistance and smuggle hostages out, steal valuable hobgoblin supplies, and assassinate their leaders.
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Mar 10, 2019 13:13
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Yeah having the hobs be brutal but basically reasonable assholes who want a town for their own purposes is a nice juke from there.
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Mar 10, 2019 20:17
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And reading the Book of Uther, I get the impression that one of the better ways to portay Uther's court, and probably medieval aristocracy in general, as gangsters; specifically somewhere between the violent bravado of a street gang or pirate crew and the veneer of civility and careful organisation of a mafia. Fanatically loyal to each other, with betrayals being significant, often splitting on grudges that can turn into generational feuds, contemptuous at best of everyone else who doesn't at least entertain them or live a lifestyle they can respect, and big on making statements and shows of power. This is exactly the approach to take - and a lot of the tension of Arthur's Court comes from him trying to do things a better way - to go legit, basically - while a few malcontents eventually start gathering around Mordred when he goes "you know, we used to do things a little different. Ladies didn't show up and start demanding we go on quests; they asked nicely. They showed us some respect. 'Cause everyone knew if you didn't show some respect we'd break your fuckin' legs." ...and then when poo poo hit the fan Arthur had to pull out Excalibur again and say "just when I thought I was out they pull me back in" and holy poo poo this metaphor works shockingly well
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Mar 11, 2019 00:50
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Sounds like the party gets to deal with hobgoblins for a while longer than I planned. But dealing with a town under military occupation is a neat adventure idea anyway. This town can't catch a break, they only just freed it from a robber baron.
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Mar 11, 2019 08:52
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See if you can get a hob that they quite like, rough but fair sort of thing.
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Mar 11, 2019 09:17
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Could be funny if the hobgoblins end up basically not much worse if at all than average feudal overlords. Probably a big problem is any local power is going to see a pirate/foreigner base and consider the townsfolk acceptable losses for getting rid of them. (while robber barons are at least their kind of people)
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Mar 11, 2019 11:30
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Local power such as the dragon I have waiting in the wings, who secretly drew tribute from the baron, and who was gonna be the next plot after the pirates? Who doesn't really care, in the end, who the town belongs to and who pays him tribute, as long as they do, and who definitely has a hoard that would be any pirate's dream of booty? I should lead my questions with this kind of stuff more, I just never think it's immediately relevant.
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Mar 11, 2019 11:46
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I've never run an adventure out of a book and I'm reading Eyes of the Stone Thief. What parts should I read for my first session? Should I read the whole book? That's a lot of reading.
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Mar 11, 2019 12:49
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I'm only preparing to run it myself, but there's a ton of stuff in there that you'll want to be able to foreshadow, so it seems like a good idea to have broad knowledge of everything. What are the different levels' themes, how do they go together (but this is, of course, itself flexible), who are the big players that you might want to hint at in advance. For the very first session I'd assume it's okay to only have in-depth knowledge of the Maw.
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Mar 11, 2019 15:02
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So I'm starting a pulp campaign in the Genesys system (we've previously played Edge of the Empire and all enjoy the narrative dice system). The gist is that in late 1930, Joseph Joffre spends all his remaining capital to form a multinational covert taskforce to combat occult threats to the free world (prompted by the rise of the Nazi party with its Thule Society origins). You are it's first field agents. Pitch your dumb pulp occult ideas, so far things I'm considering as adventure hooks, in addition to standard indiana jones style nazi occultism (spoilered just in case any of my players see this): - A group of (1930s equivalent equivalent) libertarians have stolen the declaration of independence and plan to use it to power a skyscraper sized golem to defend their idea of liberty - Lost continent/dinosaurs obviously (probably in antarctic jungle?) - Rasputin didn't actually die - Some ritual/process which turns a skull into an artifact giving people control over all descendants of the person whose skull it was - prompting a search for the tomb of Genghis Khan Solemn Sloth fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Mar 12, 2019 |
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Mar 12, 2019 13:32
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A quick and lazy way to pad out your list if you need filler is to just directly crib occult activity from the Call of C'Thulu boardgames.
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Mar 12, 2019 14:05
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Hollow Earth shenanigans are always fun. Dinosaurs, plus something like Agartha or the Vril people Airships/sky pirates is easy pickings for a pulp game, same for Atlantis There's any number of other lost cities/lands to pull from: Mu, Hyperborea, Thule, Kumari Kandam, El Dorado, Avalon, Shangri-la, Ys, Vineta, Iram of the Pillars etc. Mad scientists messing around with the elan vital, luminiferous aether, odic force etc. Ending up on the the Most Dangerous Game island is also great for an adventure
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Mar 12, 2019 14:21
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Cribbing some other media here: An alchemist's attempts at brewing an elixir of immortality run afoul of the Prohibition (their concoction using alcohol as a base). An aged Chinese sorcerer is manipulating the local triads to bring him immigrants to sacrifice for his own dark purposes. A devil taking the form of a Southern sheriff (with a bloodhound) is tracking down and killing reformed criminals. The Great Kanto Earthquake was actually caused by an underground dragon throwing a fit. The Imperial Japanese military is attempting to weaponize this. A secret society intellectuals in England, having foreseen both the coming devastation of the Second World War and the loss of the British Empire in its wake, have conspired to create a stable time loop under the guise of preventing the looming tragedy...but really their goal is to preserve Britain's power. A remote island community lures people (the player characters?) to their land to sacrifice them to their harvest god. A subset of the Catholic Church thinks another crusade would be a really good idea right about now, and have managed to obtain some incredibly powerful holy relics for this express purpose. Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Mar 12, 2019 |
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Mar 12, 2019 14:26
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Solemn Sloth posted:So I'm starting a pulp campaign in the Genesys system (we've previously played Edge of the Empire and all enjoy the narrative dice system). If you want a skyscraper-sized golem to defend the idea of liberty then my immediate thought would be to take cues from Ghostbusters 2. It's already right there.
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Mar 12, 2019 14:28
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Freudian posted:If you want a skyscraper-sized golem to defend the idea of liberty then my immediate thought would be to take cues from Ghostbusters 2. It's already right there.
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Mar 12, 2019 14:30
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Stalin has established a subset of his secret police dedicated to violent eradication of the supernatural (since it doesn't fit in with Soviet materialism). Trotsky, meanwhile, is trying to make contact with the sleeping gods of Mexico, on the basis that "Socialism in one dimension" is clearly unambitious and permanent revolution should be extended to the spiritual planes of existence.
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Mar 12, 2019 14:32
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Solemn Sloth posted:So I'm starting a pulp campaign in the Genesys system (we've previously played Edge of the Empire and all enjoy the narrative dice system). You could take a page out of Masque of the Red Death and have most of the old stories be true. Frankenstein's Monster is still around, experimenting with what of Frankenstein's notes remain as he works to create a companion, making many failures that he casts aside (perhaps funded by a certain Austrian gentleman). Dracula is spreading his influence throughout Hungary, and trying in his own, twisted way to prepare it for any future war. Shadowy cabals of mystics dating back to the pharohs are at war with one another over the true heart of magic, and are in turn corrupted by their distorted views. Hell, you could flat out run some of the Gothic Earth adventures without too much of a change. The timeline for Gothic Earth is the 1890s, but you can update it with more common vehicles, telephones, and weaponry.
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Mar 12, 2019 15:04
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Warthur posted:Stalin has established a subset of his secret police dedicated to violent eradication of the supernatural (since it doesn't fit in with Soviet materialism). Trotsky, meanwhile, is trying to make contact with the sleeping gods of Mexico, on the basis that "Socialism in one dimension" is clearly unambitious and permanent revolution should be extended to the spiritual planes of existence. LMAO this rules
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Mar 12, 2019 15:53
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Rat-men have built a giant warpstone powered bell beneath the city and it will soon toll and incite the rats and ratmen to rise up and overtake the city. The players have discovered this and have even been able to procure several barrels of gunpowder to blow it up. I have an encounter with the Grey Seer and elite ratmen guarding the bell itself, but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas to make this Vermintide situation more interesting from a roleplaying perspective.
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Mar 12, 2019 17:24
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The trick to making any fight more interesting is to provide the players with multiple objectives and make them choose which to compromise on. So maybe there are hostages, who the rats coup de grace at the start of the fight; if the players wait too long to help them, they'll have bled out. Maybe the mastermind behind the rats flees as the fight starts, forcing the players to choose between going after him, stopping the bell, and splitting the party between them. Maybe the rats have an important treasure that falls into the sewers and starts to float away over the course of the fight. E: also, I don't know if wererats are a thing in WFRP but having some recently-infected townsfolk to save or mercy-kill sounds like a good one.
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Mar 12, 2019 18:57
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Dameius posted:A quick and lazy way to pad out your list if you need filler is to just directly crib occult activity from the Call of C'Thulu boardgames. Or combine it with his Indiana Jones occult Nazis https://www.modiphius.com/achtung-cthulhu.html
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Mar 12, 2019 19:30
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Freudian posted:If you want a skyscraper-sized golem to defend the idea of liberty then my immediate thought would be to take cues from Ghostbusters 2. It's already right there. Thank you, I can't believe I didn't already work that out. I love every idea posted so far and think this is going to be a ton of fun to build and run. Solemn Sloth fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 12, 2019 |
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Mar 12, 2019 20:13
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kidkissinger posted:Rat-men have built a giant warpstone powered bell beneath the city and it will soon toll and incite the rats and ratmen to rise up and overtake the city. Try combining this White Rat situation with one of the other missions in Vermintide. Maybe the party learns at the last minute that some ratmen have set out prior to the bell tolling to poison the city's wells and the party has to stop them, then race to stop the bell now that they have less time. Does the city know about the impending invasion? If not, maybe combine it with Horn of Magnus where the party has to warn the city of the invasion, or enlist the help of a wizard to give them illusory magic cover while they blow up the bell.
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Mar 12, 2019 21:21
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