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The Mad God's Keyquote:Wandering aimlessly, we passed down the Old South Road and turned off onto a side road quite at random. We found ourselves on a street of craftsmen and shops and as we dove into the depths of the Merchants Quarter we saw a shop being ransacked by a pair of scruffy individuals. As we approached we saw a man rush up to the store and started yelling for the two to stop. It took only one swing from a cudgel to take the proprietor of the store down. As he lay bleeding from a gash in his forehead he saw us watching and beseeched us for help. Agrikk fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Mar 15, 2019 |
# ? Mar 15, 2019 05:11 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:46 |
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Wait - if Irontusk already had the key (which he sold to the Green Daggers, with you so far), why did he hire the two thugs to toss the locksmith's shop?
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# ? Mar 15, 2019 06:49 |
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Perhaps because the locksmith can no longer trade the use of his key for protection?
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# ? Mar 15, 2019 08:59 |
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And also, if snakeeyes gave up the last of his silver in the previous summary to get them in the town, how did he have any to give to iron tusk? Or did the shop keep pay in advance?
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# ? Mar 15, 2019 14:24 |
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Ilor posted:Wait - if Irontusk already had the key (which he sold to the Green Daggers, with you so far), why did he hire the two thugs to toss the locksmith's shop? habituallyred posted:Perhaps because the locksmith can no longer trade the use of his key for protection? Whoops! Because I skipped a step ( and will edit my post). Irontusk was using the Scarred Shadows as patsies. He had stolen the key earlier in the morning and wanted the two thieves to cover his tracks by tossing the place. The two thieves knew nothing of the key when pressed, only that Irontusk told them that the place was a ripe target. CzarChasm posted:And also, if snakeeyes gave up the last of his silver in the previous summary to get them in the town, how did he have any to give to iron tusk? Or did the shop keep pay in advance? Another missed detail: the shopkeeper gave them some silver in advance. Thanks for the questions y’all. I’m writing this story from notes I took from this campaign and my writing might show gaps like this. Agrikk fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Mar 15, 2019 |
# ? Mar 15, 2019 15:18 |
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Agrikk posted:Thanks for the questions y’all. I’m writing this story from notes I took from this campaign and my writing might show gaps like this. My current D&D game has had some definite amazing poo poo happen but I feel like I don't really convey it well in posting the events here which is why I haven't.
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# ? Mar 15, 2019 16:29 |
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My current Apocalypse World game also has some amazing poo poo going on right now, but I don't know how well it would be suited to fictionalized form. For fictionalized accounts of actual gaming sessions, one of our Conan-themed In A Wicked Age sessions was loving aces. Write-up is here, comment and critique welcome: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=7366.0
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# ? Mar 15, 2019 19:31 |
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Agrikk posted:Thanks for the questions y’all. I’m writing this story from notes I took from this campaign and my writing might show gaps like this. Story's good, and you've obviously got a few people following the plot.
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# ? Mar 15, 2019 20:23 |
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Yawgmoth posted:I am enjoying your story and wish I could write half as well as you do.
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# ? Mar 16, 2019 00:34 |
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Yawgmoth posted:I am enjoying your story and wish I could write half as well as you do.
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# ? Mar 16, 2019 00:49 |
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 01:57 |
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The Red Axe Innquote:With our newfound funds and the day getting away from us, we head back to the Old South Road, looking for an inn or flophouse that could house us. We ended up at a worn but solid-looking establishment back by the Northwest Gate called the Red Axe Inn, run by one Thadjzi Orc-Slayer. It was presumably his battle axe hung over the bar and the crust on the blade was probably not rust. We got a pair of rooms upstairs and headed down to the common room for a bite, a sip and the word. After sitting down over plates of cheese and meat, Snakeeyes with a pipe full of some black leaf and I with a cup of something red, a Yaghannish vintage judging by the exquisite finish. The Sage’s Guild quote:The next morning we got directions to the Sage’s Guild, deciding to follow Veltargo through the debris of his passing. Sitting on the edge of the open market in the center of the City, just outside the square surrounding the Overlord’s Keep, is an old building with the aspect of a weathered fortress. Large stone columns support a heavy stone lintel over an entry flanked by weathered stone statues of scholars holding open books before them in praise. A grand stone staircase rises up from the street to the level of the statues with guards out front with arms folded and gazes set. The Temple of Boccob quote:Located deep within Thalos’ Temple District, a bustling quarter of universities, boarding houses, and cathedrals, the Temple of Boccob is a stately structure of clean marble and simple decoration. Emblazoned above the main entry is a faintly glowing blue eye contained within a pentagram, the All-Seeing Eye of Boccob the Uncaring, god of magic.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 06:26 |
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Ilor posted:My current Apocalypse World game also has some amazing poo poo going on right now, but I don't know how well it would be suited to fictionalized form. I'd be interested in hearing about what's going on, even if you just talk about what happened instead of fictionalizing it. I'd actually prefer it to be honest.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 06:30 |
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Hey Agrikk I'm gonna ape your fictionalized narrative style to recollect some events from my home game because it matches my capabilities better than the back-and-forth dialogue style generally employed by these types of posts and because they say it is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. Let me know if that's not OK and I'll try something else instead.Remiel Lightbranch posted:Tirmazand. Westernmost of the Great Cities that dominated Kalde, the cosmopolitan Empire of Man, the whole of it seemed to spill out from the hilltop fortress like a wave of gray upon the evergreen forest surrounding. Steep cliffs served as its rear defense, calling to mind the vigilance of a lord commander preparing for battle. As his carriage drew nearer to the city gates, the finely-dressed elfin man could not help but admire the view. There's more to this one, but I had to cut it off at the halfway point because, uh... I'm tired and there's a lot left. This is technically pre-game backstory stuff, but Remiel's player and I played all this stuff out in a one-on-one when we couldn't get anyone else together for a game. It was fun to explore the history of a character who we had already seen in action as a PC, and the part 2 of this is where things really start to get good. Please let me know if you have any feedback or questions, it'd mean a lot to me.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 07:36 |
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That was a longer break than I meant, but I really had to gather my thoughts for this part. Player information and background here. Scene 3: “I lie down and wait for death.” We finally emerge from the portals and, true to F’s word, we were all together again. Except for OG who had work in the morning. F: You all find yourselves in a completely white room. You can see blank canvases on the walls and in piles around the room. There’s also an assortment of paint and other art supplies. In the middle of the room is a large rectangle covered in a white sheet. What does everyone do? B: I guess I’ll peek under the sheet. F: You see a reflective surface. UDM: Oh dear god, get away from there! Some background about UDM: F would later tell me that UDM has an irrational fear of mirrors when it comes to DnD, and that whenever a room was described to have a mirror in it, he would do everything possible to destroy that mirror, turn it away from him, or when all else failed, just stay out of the room entirely. I was never told how this anxiety came about, but F said he specifically put this upcoming “puzzle” in knowing it would mess with UDM. So UDM wasn’t letting anyone near the mirror anytime soon, so we did our best to investigate the rest of the room. Even that was going to be an issue though. SG: Roll Arcana to detect magic in the room. F: (without any rolls) It won’t work. UDM: Can I cast Detect Magic? F: Your magic doesn’t work. UDM: Can we use any magic here? F: Not really. UDM: Well I’m out of ideas. M: I’m gonna try painting something on one of these canvases. A smiley face I guess. F: Roll Performance. M: 13 F: That sure is a smiley face. M: Did painting on the canvas change anything in the room? F: Now there’s a smiley face on the wall where you painted it. Like an hour of this passed and we eventually all agreed we had to take the sheet off the mirror. Again, UDM was insistent that we don’t do it, to the point of vaguely threatening to attack anyone who tried. Which led to this fun exchange: M: What do I roll to smack UDM upside the head for being a ninny? F: Nothing. Because you’re not going to do that. M: I’m not actually attacking him, it’s like a Three Stooges slap. Nevertheless, F was visibly angry at my suggestion and the rest of the party had to convince UDM that the mirror wasn’t going to instant-kill or anything and we were allowed to finally reveal the mirror. F: The room goes black before your eyes. UDM: I loving told you people. F then handed out index cards to each player, with instructions not to read it until he said. I still read mine, to his annoyance. F: You all regain your sight and you can now see under the sheet was a large mirror with what looks like a mahogany frame. You can all read your cards now. (we read the cards) B: (to H) Hello Mom! H: What? F: Also roll Initiative. UDM: I loving told you people! M: Hey guys I see a door. After we all rolled initiative, I let everyone know my card said that I could see a door reflected in the mirror behind me that wasn’t visible when the wall was directly looked at. F got really annoyed when I announced this, but then everyone else started reading their cards aloud too. Apparently F did not anticipate this. The situation was thus: B saw everyone as one of his family members, UDM saw SG as a large, horned demon, SG saw everyone normally but the room was noticeably darker for him (which caused a small kerfuffle when he tried arguing his darkvision cancelled it out), H saw crazed scrawls and scribbles on the walls, and I saw a door. Later F would tell me he was trying to sow discord in the group and possibly cause us to fight each other, both with that puzzle and the secret instructions to B and me to make characters that would be at odds with each other (which failed anyway, both because of B’s earlier magic item that kept changing his alignment anyway, and because even though B’s paladins tend to lean towards “stupid good,” he was not in the mood for that tonight). No, I didn’t ask him why he was so mad I wanted to lightly pop UDM earlier if he planned for pvp anyway. The point being, no one was interested in attacking each other and everyone was now focused on the door. My turn came up first and I tried feeling around on the wall looking for the door and, finding nothing, punched the wall. Still nothing. I ended my turn. F: Take one damage. M: From what? F: You don’t know. B’s turn: B: Can I roll Divine Intervention? I think it should work because I’m drawing power from a deity and not a traditional magic source. F: Uh, sure. Go for it. B: (rolls) Oh it failed. F: Take one damage. UDM’s turn: UDM: What’s on the mirror’s back? F: You can see a lot of crazed scribbles in various languages. They’re mostly illegible. UDM: And magic still doesn’t work? F: Nope. Take one damage. SG’s turn: SG: I’m going to paint a door where M saw it. F: You paint a door. SG: Can I go through the door? F: No. Take one damage. Finally, H’s turn: H: So you said I can’t use any of my spells? F: No. Something in the room’s preventing it. H: Oh. I’m sorry, guys. I don’t think I can help. F: It’s okay. Take one damage. It went on like this for another hour. Most of it was a blur except for at one point I got the crazy idea to start drawing people’s portraits in hopes of a Dorian Gray-like situation where I could redirect the damage we were taking, but because my Performance skill was so bad, this just resulted in more smiley faces. Adding to everyone’s frustration was that the damage we were taking at the end or our turns kept increasing as rounds went on. Then UDM had an idea: UDM: Is the mirror attached to anything? F: No, it’s just standing there. UDM: Hey B and M, think you guys can lay this thing face down on the ground? M: Worth a shot. F lets us eschew initiative order so we could move the mirror together, at the cost of skipping both our turns. Then this happens: H: I give up. I lay down and wait for death. I can’t use any spells, I don’t know what my skills do, and we’re just going to keep taking damage we can’t do anything about anyway. F: You aren’t taking anymore damage. The mirror’s face down. I’d like to reiterate that H does not normally play TRPGs, and to my knowledge is still pretty unfamiliar with the rules. (Hell, I still am.) I’d also like to point out that we were about 5 hours deep into this one shot and this room comprised about 3 hours of that. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when I tell you H was visibly holding back tears as he said this. We had to take a break for him to calm down and for everyone to assure him the situation wasn’t as dire as it looked. Finally, the watershed moment: UDM: I’m looking at the back of the mirror again. You’re sure I can’t make anything of these scribbles? F: Oh yeah, in one of the languages you understand you can make out some references to “dark” and “portal.” UDM: Okay, I’m going to grab some black paint and draw a door on the wall M pointed out. F: A portal opens. You found the way out. UDM: Why didn’t you tell me this the first time I looked at it? F: You said you were looking at it. You didn’t say you were reading any of it. We took another break. Next Scene: “Happy New Year, by the way.”
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 16:53 |
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That would've earned a table flip because Jeez Louise, don't be a pedantic when the entire group is becoming frustrated with your puzzle!
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 17:07 |
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holy poo poo
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 17:08 |
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How did that DM still have a game at that point jesus loving christ
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 17:23 |
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I'm not sure how, as a DM, you can get that far into a game that's going that poorly and not start throwing out some heavy-handed hints. Like, how was the DM not just as miserable as the players by the 3 hour mark?
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 17:26 |
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I like the mechanic of taking a point of damage to build pressure and establish a time limit, but three hours of that poo poo? Three hours of a puzzle being not solved because the DM was being a pedant? gently caress that. I'm going outside to ride bikes. Also, for all of you GMs out there: When a player says "I lie down and wait for death" this is a pretty solid indicator that they are no longer having fun and you'd better fix your broken game pronto. edit: for table flip. I might flip the table first before going outside. Agrikk fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Mar 17, 2019 |
# ? Mar 17, 2019 17:32 |
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CeallaSo posted:I'm not sure how, as a DM, you can get that far into a game that's going that poorly and not start throwing out some heavy-handed hints. Like, how was the DM not just as miserable as the players by the 3 hour mark? DMs like that are unironic puppet masters. They enjoy your suffering and treat everything like the original King's Quest. They are best dealt with via the blast of an air horn and an ollie out of contact.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 17:33 |
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Also while UDM's mirror thing is ridiculous, but I'm starting to see why they're like this if this is what typically happens when they encounter a mirror - also kind of a dick move to pull that on someone who wigs out like that and give them more reason to wig out over mirrors.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 18:03 |
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That puzzle is completely incoherent. Why does the mirror deal damage? Why does nobody else get the door mirror? Also thank you Melvin it's been a while since we've had a decent batshit insane DM story.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 18:08 |
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My only question is why anyone is committed enough to get to in-game "I lie down and wait to die," instead of getting to out of game, "This sucks, GM, what the hell are you trying to do here?", or a straightforward, "Hey, I stopped having fun about an hour ago, I think I'm going to go home."
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 18:08 |
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MelvinBison posted:F: You said you were looking at it. You didn’t say you were reading any of it. This poo poo right here is why I don't trust people who say they like to put "puzzles" in the games they run. It always ends up with "look how smart I am and look how stupid you all are for not reading my mind "
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 18:09 |
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Like I said in my first post, we're still friends and everyone at that table remains friends with him too. (In fact, they just started a new campaign minus me and H, because again, not H's thing.) Between it being his first time DMing and, as you'll see in the next part, he did listen to feedback and took the criticisms I gave him to heart. My big concern is based on some of the secondhand stories he's told me of his group (that I don't think are my business to post here; I'll just say remember when I said SG was a killer DM and UDM developed an irrational fear of mirrors?) make me believe he legitimately thinks games operate like this. I don't know. I might offer to run something for them in the future in a not-Dnd system just to see how they'd like it because, again, it was fun running Tomb of Annihilation with them while it lasted and they're not bad people individually. Personally I think DnD just breaks people.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 18:10 |
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I honestly think it's not that tabletop games break people, it just reveals a lot of poo poo that's otherwise kept hidden, much like how wine loosens the tongue.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 18:26 |
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I've probably shared this story elsewhere and I'm sincerely sorry if I'm repeating myself but this terrible mirror story reminds me of one of the worst games of Pathfinder I ever played with Pathfinder Society: Emerald Spire Superdungeon Level 3, Godhome. First and foremost you need to understand three things. 1: Pathfinder Society is bad and it took me way too long to realize no gaming is better than bad gaming. 2: You only get maximum XP and goodies if you completely clear a legitimate module in the way it was designed to be cleared (or along those lines). 3: Godhome is a puzzle floor with minimum combat and you need to complete the puzzle to clear the floor as per Society standards. This was around 2014. I don't even remember what I was playing and quite frankly it doesn't matter, I was either a Half Elf Summoner or a Tiefling Alchemist focusing on whipping bombs at people. Here's how Godhome works, with some details cleared up by actually looking at the module's writeup: The entire level is overrun with Troglodytes who are worshiping a high-tech probe that has crashed into the dungeon's floor through a hole in space time. They call this probe the Godbox and they're peaceful as long as it's not tampered with because it provides food and water to them and they worship it in turn. Upon entering the level, the party is met by one of the few Trogs who speaks Common and entreats the party to make a sacrifice to the Godbox. Making a sacrifice is easy: it exists in its own chamber, it's electromagnetic and giving up X weight of metal items causes the exit door to open. Upon giving up enough metal, the party can be escorted to the exit and allowed to leave peacefully down to the next level. Important details: the only fixtures of the level are meat and water being produced by the Godbox, the six doors to some of the rooms, the weird glowing technotorches illuminating the level, the things stuck to the Godbox and the Godbox itself, a hexagonal structure with Suspiciously Sized slots on each face. Everything else is just Trog filth. To beat Godhome, you need to either kill all the Trogs (not ideal due to the fact that they have this debuffing stank field) and fight your way free, make a sacrifice and just leave (and honestly the sacrifices are pretty paltry) or figure out a way to deactivate the Godbox. There were around five of us in the party. It took around a half hour to make a sacrifice to the Godbox and be politely escorted to the exit. The Judge said "well, congrats, the scenario's over but you don't get maximum XP." "Why?" "You didn't complete all of the win conditions for the module, you didn't figure out how to turn off the Godbox." It took a half hour to make a sacrifice. It took around four and a half to five and a half hours to figure out how to turn off the loving Godbox. We tried rubbing more metal items on it to overwhelm it but that didn't work. We briefly had a moment of hope when we started to rip the torches off the walls and they glowed more brightly when stuck to the machine but that didn't work. We tried shoving limbs in the holes on the side of the Godbox to hit a button. We never entertained the notion of destroying the thing because that would provoke a fight we didn't want. It was only when we the Judge made an offhand comment that I understood the solution. "Pathfinder's balancing and design is fine, they really have to think these modules through so they can be completed by a team of six monks with a Vow of Poverty so anyone can complete them." "...I remove one of the doors." "Done." "I carry a door over to the Godbox and push it into the side of the Godbox." "It fits." "Everyone go grab a door." We had to run for the exit being chased by Trogs who were very upset we killed their god, but we got the maximum XP. And this entire scenario taught me the very important lesson of "if you're going to put a puzzle in your game, make it be way easier than it needs to be. Otherwise never put a puzzle in your scenario." And I'm so sorry you had to deal with Weird Mirror Bullshit that was particularly ill-conceived.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 19:22 |
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Putting a puzzle in is fine, but also put in a way for the players to ignore it whilst the characters use their skills to solve it, because a: not every player has skills matching their character's, and the game needs to allow for the characters to have answers the players can't articulate (i.e. allow them to use skills instead of player-brains to solve it) and b: because not every player has any interest in solving out-of-game puzzles in their elfgame and gently caress you if you enforce it.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 19:33 |
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When I put a puzzle in my game, I make sure of three things: 1. There's always a "roll initiative" way to bypass it. 2. There's a way to accidentally solve it. 3. The way I have intended it to be solved is some kind of stupid pun.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 19:47 |
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I used to play a lot of free text adventures, which had many puzzles. They all do boil down to that same thing: guesswhat the designer wanted you to do. One technique that some designers understood was: imagine everything wrong that players might try to do, and then write the results of those actions as failures that in some way hint towards the right approach. If you're going to have puzzles like this in a live RPG, you have the immense advantage of being able to do this on the fly. No matter how the other players surprise you, take a moment and think what reaction you could describe that will put them on the right track. Of course, you could also just decide that one of the theories the other players came up with is more fun than the one you had planned, and the scene has gone on long enough, and hey presto, they solved it, the geniuses. And you can play games which encode this system with rules, such that people with "brilliant detective" rules get to declare what mistakes the killer made which revealed their identity, or even said identity.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 19:48 |
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Also hello again everyone, I'm caught up
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 19:49 |
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I also have to wonder why breaking the Godbox is considered an "ideal" solution. It just seems to ruin the lives of a bunch of troglodytes who aren't hurting anyone, so you can go through a door without having to give up a piece of iron. If anything being pointlessly destructive like that seems like the less ideal solution, at least to any party that isn't Chaotic Evil.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 20:36 |
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Robindaybird posted:I honestly think it's not that tabletop games break people, it just reveals a lot of poo poo that's otherwise kept hidden, much like how wine loosens the tongue. Alright, now let's poo poo on everything I just wrote. --- Player information and background here. Final Scene: “Happy New Year, by the way.” We exit the mirror room and find ourselves in a boss fountain. (F straight up called it 'a boss fountain.') We’re given a full heal and two draws from the magic item deck as a kind of mea culpa for the last room. I don’t remember what everyone pulled, but I got my hands on a Trident of Fish Command. I actually didn’t want it at the time, but everyone at the table said it was a good weapon and that it wouldn’t interfere with my Monk’s extra attack or Flurry, so I took it along. We leave the boss fountain and are told we were now in a long room with a throne on the other end. And sitting on that throne was the ancient evil we were sent to kill: I wish I was kidding. F rattles off a quick monologue, trying to do the voice as best he could, and about this time, I hatch a plan. I still had my Talisman of Pure Good (which besides hurting non-good characters that touch it, had the primary use of basically pointing at an evil character and, if they failed a save, would basically get dragged to hell) and so I told the group my plan: March to the other side of the room, point at the BBEG and one shot him. Then F finished describing the room: F: The room is 300 feet long by the way. M: Wait, really? F: Yes, and his throne rises in the air with a barrier forming around it. M: Really? F: Also monsters suddenly appear. M: The monsters, F said, were only meant to be a warm up and would not take forever. However, at this point he was still drawing them at random from his monster deck, which led to us going up against a djinn, a marid, and a large burrowing creature that I distinctly remember being called a drow, but all my google searches say I’m wrong so let’s call it a bulette. Immediately issues emerged when the djinn, for its first turn, flew straight up into the air for its attacks. Since OG’s leaving, over half the team was melee and the djinn was too high for me to even throw my new trident at it, leaving fighting it to just UDM and SG since they had ranged options. That was thwarted though, when the bulette immediately engaged SG. The marid didn’t do much besides hit people with her spear and was a non-issue at the moment. B had an ability or item that granted limited flight so he was able to engage the djinn for the moment, and UDM actually forwent shielding himself like he did against the mimics in favor of actually attacking it so we got off to a good start. SG and H did their best against the bulette while I kept the marid busy. Then the bulette got its next turn. F: The bulette burrows underground. M: It can do that? When’s it coming back up? F: Its next turn, I guess. SG: Is there any way to detect it? F: I don’t think so? We weren’t in the mood for a rules ruling so late at night so we just accepted that SG wasn’t engaged anymore and could focus on the marid while the djinn was still held up by B. Luckily, SG had an “ace” up his sleeve. SG: I cast Darkness. M: What? But none of us will be able to see! SG: It’s fine. I have darkvision. I’m told half-orcs had access to darkvision too, but I was unaware of this at the time and no one thought to point this out. So at this time almost everyone on the ground was neutered and B’s flight was about to run out. Then I had my best moment of the night: M: Hey, you said the marid was an aquatic monster? Does it have a swim speed listed? F: Yeah it does. M: Cool. I’m going to use my Trident to try to dominate it. It has to make a WIS save or I get control of it. F crit failed the save and handed me the marid’s card; ruling that I got control of it for the rest of combat. Suddenly we had another body that could actually hit the djinn (but not engage it) and the bulette was pretty close to going down. We still had the issue of some of the party having nothing to do now because UDM was out of spells and B wouldn’t have anything to do once the bulette went down because he couldn’t reach the djinn anymore. That’s when I hatched my next plan: let my new pet marid take care of things there and hoof it the 300 feet down the hall to throw Skeletor into a hell pit. Unfortunately, this plan never came to fruition because: SG: Hey, can we call it here? I’m getting tired. M: Wait what? H: Yeah, I’ve got some appointments in the morning. See y’all later. M: But- F: Okay. Sorry about that guys; I wasn’t expecting it to take so long. B: No worries. Good game, guys. UDM: Good game. I’m going to bed. M: F was my ride to the party so I had the trip back to my apartment to tell him exactly what I thought of his one shot. To his credit, he actually listened. The magic items idea was great and led to the best moments of the night. (He agreed). Splitting the party is never a good idea. (He completely agreed). Trying to build your game around making PvP happen is a terrible idea and will ruin people’s nights. (He fought back against this for a second, stating that PvP was pretty common in all the games he’s run with his group, but he relented when I pointed out you have to get everyone on the same page when you do that, and not being part of his group, I was not okay with it.) Don’t have an encounter right before a boss fight, just have adds in your boss fight. (He agreed). The big sticking point was the mirror puzzle (or as I called it, “that loving piece of poo poo mirror puzzle”). I told him: a) encouraging PvP like he did is completely counterintuitive to cooperating to solve the puzzle; b) Pedantics between “looking” and “reading” are complete horseshit (he claimed this was a “brain fart” on his part. I so desperately want that to be true); c) having us roll initiative, even if that let him organize things like the damage we were taking, is a pretty clear indicator that combat is happening and the 3 parts of a turn are also counterintuitive towards puzzle-solving and d) he should’ve pulled the plug when it became apparent that the inexperienced player was having an awful time. He did seem apologetic by the end but maintained that he completely believed that we were going to solve it in less time than we did. M: Sometimes it doesn't matter how in love you are with your puzzle, at some point you just have to let your players be right. Happy New Year, by the way, my alarm just went off. That’s right. Our New Year’s Eve party didn’t even make it to the new year. That was a first.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 20:41 |
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PurpleXVI posted:I also have to wonder why breaking the Godbox is considered an "ideal" solution. It just seems to ruin the lives of a bunch of troglodytes who aren't hurting anyone, so you can go through a door without having to give up a piece of iron. If anything being pointlessly destructive like that seems like the less ideal solution, at least to any party that isn't Chaotic Evil. Yeah same to me, there does not seem to be any reason to destroy the Godbox.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 20:47 |
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Zorak of Michigan posted:My only question is why anyone is committed enough to get to in-game "I lie down and wait to die," instead of getting to out of game, "This sucks, GM, what the hell are you trying to do here?", or a straightforward, "Hey, I stopped having fun about an hour ago, I think I'm going to go home." I had a game in which I was (unknowingly) the lost king of the realm and I would eventually realize that, a la King Arthur, that the King and the Land are one. The game started and I was a boy in a village and all this hosed up poo poo kept happening to me. Friends dying, parents dying, pets dying, the whole bit. It was to indicate that the lands were sick and falling into despair and would eventually learn that I was the King that would Right the Wrongs. It was a great campaign and he remains one of my favorite characters, but holy poo poo that beginning, though. It was so depressing for maybe the first four sessions that we finally stopped and said, “Mike, this is depressing as gently caress and is not fun, what the hell is going on here?” He explained that he was setting the tone and we said, “tone loving established. Can we move along now?” We jumped into the business of saving the realm right quick. Edit: That ending! You know the end of The Holy Grail where King Arthur and his army are charging the French castle but the cops pull up and hustle him into the back of the truck and the movie ends abruptly? This story ends like that. Agrikk fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Mar 17, 2019 |
# ? Mar 17, 2019 20:50 |
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PurpleXVI posted:I also have to wonder why breaking the Godbox is considered an "ideal" solution. It just seems to ruin the lives of a bunch of troglodytes who aren't hurting anyone, so you can go through a door without having to give up a piece of iron. If anything being pointlessly destructive like that seems like the less ideal solution, at least to any party that isn't Chaotic Evil. Because everything about Emerald Spire is even worse than usual Pathfinder stuff (including a water based floor where you can manage to aggro the entire floor from the first room), and the Godhome level is made even worse in PFS mode because to get the best rewards you have to murder them and disable the Godbox, I assume because otherwise you could get a full module done in about an hour at most and we can't have that.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 20:53 |
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senrath posted:Because everything about Emerald Spire is even worse than usual Pathfinder stuff (including a water based floor where you can manage to aggro the entire floor from the first room), and the Godhome level is made even worse in PFS mode because to get the best rewards you have to murder them and disable the Godbox, I assume because otherwise you could get a full module done in about an hour at most and we can't have that. Is Emerald Spire bad enough to be worth a Fatal & Friends write-up? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3758962 Or just dumb and uninspired?
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 20:57 |
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I'd have to reread through it since it's been years since I last did anything with it, but from what I remember mostly it's just kinda dumb and uninspired, with a few egregiously bad bits. Edit: I might do a writeup of it anyway, or at least of the egregiously bad bits. senrath fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Mar 17, 2019 |
# ? Mar 17, 2019 21:01 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:46 |
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Let me get this straight though: how does sealing the door-sized holes on the godbox with doors shut it down? And if the holes in it are door-sized, were you just unable to go inside the godbox and fiddle with it? You said people were sticking their arms in it, which is why I'm wondering.
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# ? Mar 17, 2019 21:14 |